I'm in a fairly rural town of 6,000 with pretty much all absolute necessities--convenience stores, grocery, bank, restaurants, library, clinic, etc.--available within a 2 mi radius.

Right across the state border is a city of 12,000, which includes bigger grocery stores, box stores, and the like, all within 4-5 mi of our house.

Next city over is 29,000 residents, and includes hospital, movie theater, bike shop, bookstore, health food store, and merhaps most importantly, an inter-state bus station, 5-8 miles away--Boston is about 1:45 away by bike then bus.

We work in a city of 21,000, which actually has better amenities (2 bike shops!) than the larger, closer city. Commute is 17.5 mi, one way. We do this commute by bike on a regular basis... during warmer weather when the streets are not iced over.

There's also an area bus service, which would work great getting to the closer cities, but trying to get from our place to work via bus and various different connections would take close to 3hrs one way. Not viable for the work commute, but both of us work at the same place, so we car pool together in the winter.

For our current situation, it would be completely plausible to go car free--toughen up in the Winter or switch to freelance work at home--but we also have to deal with my teen son, picking him up from and dropping him off to his mom's place, chauffering him to various and sundry activities.

As a result, we are car-lite, only one car between us.

This situation has proven pretty educational about the potential to be car free. A warmer climate that supported year round biking (or we HTFU...), a couple years til my son is driving or biking, and car free would be viable. More importantly, if we were to move someplace warmer, I'd be looking for a location with the same kind of setup--convenience and amenities withing walking distance or a short bike ride 2-3mi, wider range of businesses including a public transporation hub within 5-10 mi, and pretty much anything else we might need, including employment, no further than 20 mi or so.