Grew up in south New Jersey, 20 miles northeast from Philadelphia, PA on the Delaware River. My parents bought a new house in a development modeled on the Levittown ideal of suburban living. It was just being developed and behind our house was a peach orchard, not for long as development expanded but the dirt and mounts created for the basements for the new houses were great fun to play on. The weather was great, played outside all the time. No TV in the living room and no coloring books. Lots of paper, crayons, colored pencils and watercolor paints. In the summer crafts at the church for the kids and school friends would come to our house and play board games when it was too frickin' hot or rainy to play outside. But by the time I was 12 the best thing about church on Sunday was sneaking out after the choir sang and going to sit on the edge of the Delaware River, listen to the water, birds and critters in the woods. Otherwise just felt like I did not belong there. When I was 20 I got on a plane for the first time and flew to Seattle to visit a friend, it literally felt like coming home. I never moved back to NJ. Loved the Seattle area and miss it. Should say I miss what the area was back in the 1970s and 1980s. eastern WA is okay.

Small town, Indiana, typical. It was "the woods" where we hung out through childhood. Great Fun and adventures, and of course t-r-o-u-b-l-e .....Houses there now of course.

Teenage years were crushing, but I survived

I grew up near the City of Champions. (It will be interesting to see who many think it's THEIR town LOL)

I'll treat this a sociological question.
I did my growing up from the age of about five in a small expanding town in Hampshire. My family moved there as part of the London overspill in the late 1960s where the Greater London Council built little London's around the home counties. As far as I was concerned, this was the countryside - milk delivered by horse and cart, mud roads, trees and wildlife such as red squirrels in our tiny garden.
As time drew on, the town became a commuter suburb of London. The rural accents gave way to something more 'cockney'.

I grew up in Missouri at a time when almost everywhere in the US was comfortably prosperous, even for working stiffs like my family. Massachusetts was a big improvement.

I grew up in West Seattle. No complaints. Moved around the Greater Seattle area for the first 51 years of my life, but when I learned there were places with more sunshine and fewer gray drizzly days, I left for the warmth of sunnier days and warmer nights.

I grew up in NJ.
The best thing about that was leaving.

I grew up in Speedway, IN - 4 blocks from the Indy 500 race track. Need I say more than that? (Race fans are wild! The entire month of May was incredibly entertaining).

Ok, another cool thing: we were close to extended family living there. I got to spend a lot of QT with my grandparents and was on good terms with MANY cousins. I really miss it/them so much.

Grew up around Baltimore, went downhill, moved to Delaware still pretty good

I grew up twenty miles as the crow flies from Manhattan. In the winter I ice skated on a pond surrounded by trees, I think a superhighway goes through there now. For my birthday we would see a Broadway play and school field trips sometimes went to NYC museums. Still love both culture and forests.

Brooklyn and a waterfront area on Eastern Long Island.

The differences of living in both places was the greatest.

Winchester, Illinois. It wasn't crowded like Chicago or St. Louis.

I grew up on the surface of the planet called Earth. More specifically on part of that surface where the rock of the planet was above the sea level, so I didn't have to swim.

I particularly liked the fact that the Earth being in the 'Goldilocks zone' meant it's surface was at a temperature that could sustain life - indeed it would have been unfortunate if that had not been the case.

I grew up in a small town 150 miles west of where I live now. When I was in HS my mom died and my dad remarried. When I was a senior in HS dad told me I wouldn't be going to college, he was not going to sign the permission paperwork (this was 1976) because he wasn't going to be responsible for the cost. He didn't give me many options for a future. I walked downtown one afternoon, dropped in on the Navy recruiter's office. They had no openings for a women's basic for about a year, he walked me over to the Army recruiter's office and I took paperwork home to my dad that evening. Dad had no good reason not to sign, so he did. The following December I left that small town and my dad's roof and never looked back. And that, my dears, has made all the difference.

I grew up in a suburb in the Detroit area. There was no scenery to speak of, and the weather was miserable - hot and humid in the summer, and cold, gray and slushy in the winter. I couldn't get out of there fast enough, and I'd live on the street before I'd live there again.

I grew up in a village about 30 km away from Lisbon. What I liked? My neighbours were always ready to help and everyone would help each other. What I didn't like? People were too nosy...