As a non-American, I’m very confused by this. If it’s a town, it’s not rural by definition. Because, you-know, it’s urban.
Also, could we get a definition of town vs small town. Do you not have the concept of a village? (Village in the UK would be a settlement with a population of a couple of thousand, with usually a pub, local shop, maybe a post office and primary school if you’re lucky).
“Village” isn’t used anywhere in the USA as far as I know. Places with <500 people call themselves a town usually. Where I’m from in NH (close to these towns), residents call themselves townies. “Small” is kinda just used as a grammatical intensifier in all the cases I’ve heard it used. YMMV in the south or Midwest though.
Villages are quite common in the north eastern US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_(United_States)
The term village is used to describe certain categories of populated areas, either colloquially or legally, in 27 states.
Lots of villages in NH, although I don’t think it’s a legal term. For example, Wakefield NH residents seem to refuse to accept that they have a town. They refer to the legal township as “the villages of Wakefield”, and when asked their residency, will say “I live in the village of Union” (or Sanbornville, etc.) also, there is the village of Milton Mills in the town of Milton, and Gonic in Rochester.
There are villages in NE…I think maybe there aren’t a ton, they have very small populations, and most people don’t live in them, so they don’t know what the difference is.
There definitely are villages throughout the USA, but I lived near some in NE specifically. They do not have their own police or much government…and are significantly smaller than a town.