Sounds very much like the used-to-be-semirural area between Tampa and Orlando that I moved to in the mid 1980s. Population has doubled, traffic abounds, housing/rent through the roof (not my problem, but daughter can't find a decent place she can afford on a fulltime salary), numerous ethnic restaurants (one good benefit), but in my neighborhood and in the downtown there is still a small-town feel. How long that will last is up in the air, but daughter is already talking about moving us to either northern KY or around Cleveland TN, and she is not right-wing like her dad or her brother (she isn't leftist either, thank God).
There is less and less rural these days. Pretty soon I-35 all the way from Oklahoma City to San Antonio is going to be one giant Googleplex.