These attributes can be strengths to draw upon by those less familiar with a community and how it both sees itself and its place in the world. In a very real sense this kind of indigenous knowledge is priceless and the most effective collaborations are ones wherein such local knowledge is valued and turned into a working asset for a projects and programs. A certain sense of scale also pervades much of rural living. My father, a native Vermonter, has what I think is an exquisite way of putting this. While objectively I believe this may be less the case today than perhaps it was a generation or so ago, nevertheless rural people still boast a more direct relationship with local institutions and personalities than do their counterparts living elsewhere.
Social intimacy can also lead to an overwhelming pressure to conform.
This is felt most acutely by teens and young adults who frequently respond by seeking to leave the locale. It is also well worth remembering that community life can be highly contested, and that many of the struggles of individuals and groups may be neither apparent nor obvious. In his fine book Far From Home, Ron Powers discusses at length a community whose elite suppressed all attempts at community renewal because it feared that its position of power and authority might erode as a consequence of any change, even those for the obvious best of the majority within the community. And when conflict does break out in a rural area or a small town, mediation and negotiation can become that much more difficult, and long-standing feuds can emerge as subtexts of community life and interaction. Nothing could be farther from the truth.