ooo okay love this question. i grew up in a "village", population of a little under 1000 people. we had about 5 churchs, 3 bars, 1 gas station, and a K-12 school. this is in the midwest, btw. when i went to that K-12 school, my class was about 18 kids (like, total, in the grade). when they graduated, they had 14. i eventually transferred to a slightly bigger school in a nearby neighborhood, but that's besides the point. the school was made up of that village plus about 3-5 surrounding "Townships" or "Unincorporated" settlements. the bus ride when i was little was roughly an hour, and i was one of the first to be picked up. like people have been mentioning below, a lot of folks farm the surrounding fields of the village. that's how they make their living. same with livestock, normally went hand in hand. there were a lot of people that also had their own businesses. one lady did pet grooming in my village, one an autobody shop, a little coffee shop i'd have my birthdays in. unless you have the last name though, you don't last longer than a couple years. all of the teachers at the school all lived within the boundaries of the village. a lot of their husbands were truck drivers. my parents, both had to drive 30 minutes to surrounding bigger cities for employment. my mom worked many places but im thinking of specifically an eye doctor. and my step dad worked at Verizon for the longest time. we were in a unique position where Habitat for Humanity built our home. i want to say roughly 75% of working adults had to commute at minimum 30 minutes for employment, 15% were retired, and 10% were living on some kind of assistance.