I've never visited Rushsylvania, but this photo warmed my heart. I've approached and then passed through many villages of this kind. Little communities (1000 or less) are an important part of my growing-up years. A two-story building that had once served a function (a hotel, perhaps) which now has a small market or a pizza place or antique mall on the first floor…. a church along the highway and others on side streets… an American flag outside a public building or military memorial… a brick building that is the post office or the bank or the library… houses both old and new along the highway and the side streets… a gas station, perhaps with a convenience store… brick buildings that had once been older filling stations or automobile repair places, and now they're either closed or being used for other functions (a flower shop, an antique store)…a children's park down the street... power lines … road signs… a business sign with replaceable letters….
I like living in larger communities, but part of me thinks a home in a very small town would be nice. I've seen enough parochial thinking in larger cities to know that little towns don't have a monopoly on that and similar aspects of human nature. The drawbacks of small towns and rural areas include the distance from important services, and many cultural events. You have to put a lot of miles on your car. The benefits, though, include the closeness of community, the possibility of warm neighborliness, the heritage readily to hand, and the quiet peace of the few, familiar places.
Here is the little town where my parents and I lived in 1959, when I was two, the only year of my childhood not in Vandalia, IL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bondville,_Illinois
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