Beyond Bedford Falls: 15 other fictional small towns we'd love to live in

It's It's a Wonderful Month here at Episodes, where we will celebrate Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life — and Every Time a Bell Rings, the book about the film that Emily cowrote with Lauren Theisen of Defector. The film turns 80 in December; the book is out on September 29, and you can preorder it below.

One of the best things about It's a Wonderful Life is the way it depicts Bedford Falls, NY, the kind of small town you might reasonably want to live in – even if it feels a little like a prison to our ol' pal George Bailey. Now, would Lily or Emily want to live in a small town? Not really. The lure of good coffee is too strong. But if forced to relocate, we might choose one of these fictional burgs, all spiritual heirs to Bedford Falls!

Note: We tried to stay a little off the beaten path here. So yes, yes, Stars Hollow and Mayberry would be nice to live in, at least in theory, but we wanted to highlight some less common choices. And we wanted these to be towns we actually wanted to live in. Would Emily like to live in Twin Peaks? She thinks so, but we all know she'd immediately lose her nerve the first time she was summoned from a dead sleep to the Black Lodge! To be happy, our girl needs consistent Wi-Fi, hot showers, and an absence of overwhelming dread.

(Psst... want more content like this in your inbox? Subscribe!)

Mandrake Falls, Vermont, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

Bedford Falls is so clearly riffing on Mandrake Falls from director Frank Capra's earlier "what if the best man alive was living in a tiny town somewhere" classic, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. Now, because Mr. Deeds, uh, goes to town (New York), we don't spend a ton of time in Mandrake Falls, but the scenes we get there do speak to its fundamental decency as a place and large collection of oddballs. This is important. Any small town worth moving to must have a large collection of oddballs. –Emily St. James

Christmastown, The Nightmare Before Christmas

When trying to come up with slightly unorthodox pitches for this inventory, I thought of Halloweentown from Henry Selick's stop-motion delight The Nightmare Before Christmas. That's fun! I thought. But would I want to live there? Then I thought, Unless... and made the Kombucha Girl face. Because I would kill living in Christmastown. I would drink hot chocolate and go on sleigh rides and do some caroling, and I would fend off any further kidnappings of my GENTLE LORD Santa Claus. And! It's established Emily St. James lore that I would look really hot in elfwear, so sign me up! –ESJ

Duckburg, assorted Disney duck-related media

I love the comics of renowned "good duck artist" Carl Barks, who toiled away in the Disney trenches for much of his life to little notice or acclaim, turning out surprisingly thrilling adventure comics about Donald Duck, his nephews, and (most famously) his uncle Scrooge McDuck. While, yes, they go off to have adventures all around the world, they always come back home to Duckburg, USA. Barks's whole deal was adapted for the much better-known animated series DuckTales, but it's the artist's original conception of Duckburg as a kind of Everytown, USA, that offers a brief respite from the horrors of the world that I'd like to move to. Provided I don't have to become a cartoon duck. Which I maybe would? Should I rethink this? –ESJ

Possum Springs, Night in the Woods

Possum Springs isn't an obvious candidate for a picturesque, perfect small town. It's in the middle of an economically depressed former coal-mining region somewhere in western Pennsylvania, with little in the way of arts programming or, like, decent infrastructure. Still, the game is creator Scott Benson's love letter to the frequently-belittled places he grew up, and his tenderness for the region is infectious. The actual people who inhabit Possum Springs, save for the stuffy Town Council, are good folks, talented and empathetic. The church in town is headed by a female pastor who uses they/them pronouns for God, and the library hosts a surprisingly intense and powerful poetry night. I'd happily settle in for a weeknight nosh at the Clik Clak Diner before walking back to my rowhouse under bright autumn leaves. (Also, cell phones canonically don't work in Possum Springs, which, if I may say so: good.) —Lily Osler

Pelican Town, Stardew Valley

Now, the vibe in Pelican Town is a little... shall we say... incestuous? Maybe a dozen people live there, and while they don't seem to be wildly interrelated, it's hard to say how any newcomers are attracted to their idyllic little valley. Then again, I'd be moving there, presumably because I inherited a farm, so maybe the town expansion plan involves lots of farm inheritance. Anyway, once I got there, I'd have a charming, spooky valley to explore, as well as a host of young single people just throwing themselves at me. And with 112-day long years and a regular cycle of festivals and other fun things, I'd always have something to do, especially if I downloaded and installed a bunch of fanmade DLC expansions. Would life in Pelican Town start to feel like a chore if I weren't experiencing it as a game? Let's not think about that before we buy a house, okay? –ESJ

Unnamed Vermont small town, Newhart

The American conception of the idyllic small town tends to have a strong New England-y vibe. Southern small towns? Those are for gothic horror. Midwestern small towns? Those are for stories about horrible conformity. But New England? That's where you want to hang your hat! Like, yes, fictional New England also includes "most of Stephen King" and "the town from Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery,'" but then you've got a bunch of cozy little hamlets surely based on the sorts of small towns coastal elite types briefly stayed in while leaf peeping one year. Few are as wonderful as the town from Newhart, Bob Newhart's second long-running sitcom, which would keep me on my toes with the kooky oddballs and allow me to find long-term employment simply from having a brother with the same name as me. And if I moved there, I might get to find out what the town is called! –ESJ

Become a paid subscriber: You'll get access to all the newsletters only paid subscribers receive, including the 26 Episodes feature and our book club; the Episodes Discord; and almost a decade of archives. Plus you'll get to comment and ask questions in the mailbag! Sign up for as little as $5/month below!

Cicely, Alaska, Northern Exposure

Do I, a known trans woman, married to another woman, terribly want to move to Alaska? No. But Cicely, Alaska, was founded by lesbians and carries within it a certain egalitarian streak that I have to assume has persisted into the 21st century. The town has all the amenities you'd want for somewhere so far off the beaten path, including a radio station that seems to have every single song ever created, and the locals would be both welcoming and immediately all up in my business. And if, somehow, I wasn't moving there with my wife, I'd immediately get involved in some kind of will-they, won't-they, which appeals to me as a scholar of television. –ESJ

Everwood, Colorado, Everwood

Possibly my favorite WB teen soap, largely because of how criminally overlooked it was and how expertly it avoided becoming a pure sapfest, I will only move to Everwood if I can become a teenager again because I want to get involved in some fuckin' love triangles, not sit around waiting to dispense sage advice to the many young people in my midst. (I guess technically the adults had their love triangles, too, but let's ignore that for a minute.) Other than that, I'm living in pure mountain grandeur with free-at-point-of-purchase medical care set up by a do-gooder doctor who's atoning for past misdeeds? Let's do this! Let me pull up Zillow! –ESJ

Sunnydale (yes, really), Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Look. LOOK. I know what you're thinking. Is she trolling us here? Does she actually want to live in Sunnydale, the vampire-murder capital of the United States? The town built over a damn Hellmouth? Believe it or not, yes, I absolutely do. The vampire (and merman and evil nerd polycule and so forth) issue is certainly real, and I would not begrudge anyone who didn't want to move to Sunnydale for reasons of "it's very likely that I will be killed by a Halloween monster immediately upon signing a lease." However, as an introvert who doesn't really like going out late at night or partying or whatever, I don't think I'd be a top target for the vamps, and, as a 30-year-old, I no longer have to go to high school, where most of Sunnydale's monsters reside. And once you get over that whole issue, Sunnydale would be a really idyllic place to live! It's Buffy canon that housing prices in Sunnydale are dirt-cheap (owing, again, to the vampires), it's right by the beach, there's a really cute downtown, it's able to maintain its small-town feel despite being home to a UC campus, and the whole thing seems to be eminently walkable. Buffy herself doesn't even drive! And, assuming that Sunnydale is (like its inspiration Santa Barbara) just up the coast from LA, you've got all the advantages of small-town living with easy access to a major metropolis. What's not to love, aside from the vampires? —LO

Lower Wolvercote, from The Book of Dust

I debated picking the alternate-universe Oxford from Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series but decided against it, as Oxford is not by any definition a "small town." That said, there is a beautiful, picturesque village I'd love to call home in Pullman's world just up the river: Wolvercote, the tiny hamlet where protagonist Malcolm Polstead lives in Pullman's prequel novel La Belle Sauvage. It's a miniscule dot on the map, consisting mostly of The Trout, the (apparently real?) inn that Malcolm's parents run, and a convent across the river full of caring, intellectually curious nuns. But it's an ideal place for Malcolm, an awkward but curious kid, to grow up in, surrounded by a beautiful riparian ecosystem and a generous community. Like Sunnydale, it's close to a major urban area while retaining its own cozy identity; unlike Sunnydale, crucially, it does not have any vampires. —LO

Gilead, Iowa, Marilynne Robinson's Gilead novels

Gilead, Iowa — the setting of Robinson's Gilead, Home, Lila, and Jack — gets its sense of loveliness from how detailed it is. Seeing as Gilead's lead character, the Rev. John Ames, is the pastor of a local Reformed congregation, we mostly experience Gilead through its midcentury Mainline Protestant churches. But those congregations are enough, at least for me, to see the beauty in the town. The pastors – both Ames and his colleagues at other churches – take the gentler parts of the Gospels very seriously, constantly meditating on forgiveness, generosity, and the difficult necessity of not casting judgment on others — all values I like to see if I, an urban lesbian with an anxiety disorder, am going to be moving to the rural Midwest in the 1950s! Between scenes in Gilead's churches, Robinson lavishes the countryside around Gilead with specific natural details — a babbling creek here, a thatch of prairie grass there — in such a way that it makes an often-overlooked part of the country seem gobsmackingly beautiful. —LO

Middlemarch, England, Middlemarch

Is George Eliot's novel of provincial small-town life in 19th century England a cautionary tale about reactionaries unable to grapple with change and the limited roles of women in Eliot's time? Technically, yes. Do I think I could navigate these currents to make a go of it as, like, Middlemarch's first bed and breakfast operator? Also yes. To Dorothea Brooke, the novel's increasingly worn-down protagonist, who is trapped by societal expectations and a bad marriage, who is surely politely disagreeing with me even as I speak, I have only one thing to say: Skill issue. –ESJ

Portland, Maine, from Van Reid's Moosepath League books

Exotic and strange, I would probably have to spend a fair amount of time getting used to life in the most unusual city of "Portland, Maine," hailing from Van Reid's Moosepath League books. Okay, yes, Portland, Maine, exists, but Reid's depiction of it as an explosion of genteel Americana right before the turn of the 20th century is what most appeals to me. I'd get to hang out with well-to-do do-gooders, odd rapscallions, and many lovely young ladies with hearts of gold, and I would never have to get up to anything too adventurous. The Moosepath League books are among my favorite cozy novels, so why not move into them? –ESJ

Dream Harbor, Laurie Gilmore's Dream Harbor series

We try not to judge books by their covers here at Episodes dot ghost dot io, but I have long judged Laurie Gilmore's Dream Harbor books as a series I will pick up the moment I reach retirement age. No knock on them! I know a lot of people who like them! They just look very grandmacore – in a good way! But another thing I'm going to judge based on the covers? How much I would like to live in Dream Harbor, a town that seems to only have seasonally appropriate businesses, which would appeal to my holiday-loving lil' heart. (Honorable mention: Jan Karon's Mitford series, another group of books I haven't read but have on good authority I will like when I am a grandma.) –ESJ

Most model railroad, Halloween, or Christmas villages, probably a basement somewhere

I just want to be tiny and live in a place where nothing ever changes and everything is beautiful! Is that so much to ask? –ESJ

A Good Song

The free edition of Episodes is published every Monday and every other Wednesday. Premium subscribers get those newsletters, plus extra ones every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. Our editor-in-chief is Emily St. James, and our managing editor is Lily Osler. If you have suggested topics, please reply to the email version of this newsletter or comment (if you are a paid subscriber).