THere's a lot to be said for small town living.
We built a new house in a nice subdivision w/ a five acre lot for just under $200K a couple years ago.
I 'commute' to town about 6 times a day to run kids. (6 mile round trip).
As long as I can find a job to support that 200k house I'm all for small town.
Of course it depends on your definition of "small."
Do you mean small town like Charlottesville, Virginia (pop 40,000) small, or Coolidge, Kansas (pop 90) small?