Many people prefer to live in big cities, but some others prefer to live in small towns. Both places have their own advantages and disadvantages. Can we live in a big city happily? Or can we live in a small town without regretting our decision to be away from big cities? Big cities seem to have more problems, including serious population density and environmental pollution, than small towns. I would like to live in a small town despite many advantages big cities can provide, such as better educational opportunities, better public transportation systems, better utility services and easier access to information. First, small towns are less polluted and less densely populated than big cities. In the era of the Internet and well-connected nationwide highways, living in a small town is never a problem. On the contrary, living in a less polluted part of the country is a privilege. Moreover, the spiderweb-like interconnections of the information highways link small towns with big cities across the country and around the world. Although big cities can provide better educational opportunities and utility services, small towns have advantages of their own. I believe I can receive a genuine education in small towns by learning from both textbooks and natural environment. Second, people can fit in with everyone else easily in small towns. In big cities, people normally live in jungles of apartment buildings without feeling the need to go out of their way to mix with their neighbors. In small towns, you can also mix with the natural environment at every turn of the seasons. Imagine you are absorbed in studies with your friends in school surrounded by the greenery of spring, the roar of streams in summer, the scintillating foliage in fall and the snow-capped mountains in winter. Under the canopy of stars, you can make wishes upon shooting stars at night. Your neighbors can be friends anytime without reservation. In small towns, you can develop your own sensitivity to nature and beauty, and respectable personality, the two prerequisite to humans. Small towns don’t offer people many opportunities for jobs and lifestyles. In many cases, they can’t offer a decent standard of life, nor an opportunity to meet people of different backgrounds, cultures, and political and personal beliefs, as big cities can. But in the era of information highways, I believe we can learn in small towns as well as in big cities. After all, I prefer a better quality of life in a small town.