This was one of my essays to a Hometown Facebook group some years back:

My St. Charles years started in 1969, but really took shape in 1972. That January was when we moved to a house at the end of LaSalle Drive on the northern edge of the city. The area was still being built up at that time, and the street ended at a steep, wooded hillside littered with fallen trees and split by ravines. I was 14 then, and it was the perfect place for teenage boys to roam. In short order, me, my stepfather and a few other men from the neighborhood put up a basketball hoop. A quiet, dead end street where kids of all ages could play all day and into the night was ideal. The scene for my teenage years was complete.

Our yard, and those of four other homes up the street backed up to what remained of Leverenz's farm. Mr. and Mrs. Leverenz still lived in the farmhouse, about a hundred yards west of the property line. Their children, Vernon and Gracie, built their own family homes on the remaining acreage. Gracie and her husband, Gary Lowery, became close with many of the families on our street and within a couple years worn paths linked many of our homes. Our little neighborhood became more like a separate village on the edge of the city.

Being at the end of the street made our house one of the natural gathering points. We used some of the land at the edge of the woods for a horseshoe pit and grill large enough for pig roasts. When the husbands all disappeared on Saturday afternoon, it was often for beer and horseshoes. The wives would gather up the street and then amble down to reclaim the men, occasionally leading one of the guys to mutter, "here comes the war department!"

Memorial Day and Labor Day weekend celebrations frequently lasted all weekend. Likewise other holidays throughout the year were neighborhood occasions.

I started college in 1976, and wasn't back much after that. My mom and stepfather split up soon after, and I had not been back for many years when I last stopped by in 2004. LaSalle still was, and likely always will be a dead end. The basketball hoop was still there, but in 2004 the woods were gone, the hillside graded down a bit, the ravines filled in, and new construction dotted the valley below. The scene is brighter and sunnier but rather sterile and boring, at least to me. The same house is still there, but could never seem like home again.

Grew up in a rural part of North East England, as near as you can get here to red neck country, inland but not far from the coast.
I will still always love the gentle rolling hills, fields, woods and hedges. Too many good memories of it, but I remember the old manor farm, where I had my first pocket money job helping in the garden and with the sheep. And the first fossils I ever found in the village stream, it was a hot day, but my feet were frozen in the water, and it made me late home, but I would still not want to have missed any.

I grew up in a military family, so we were not stationary, always moving every 18 months or so. I've lived in quite a few states, but the two that stand out for me are Alaska and California. We moved to Alaska when I was in the 2nd grade, and I loved it. I was in awe the first time I saw the Northern Lights. My dad had taken us out to cut our Xmas tree, yes we did decorate a tree and enjoyed all the gifts but there was no church or religion involved. While we were out finding our tree my dad pointed up to the sky and said look at that, and I remember thinking there was a curtain of colors hanging in the sky. It was amazing to my 7 year old self. My dad was then transferred to California. The military base was in northern California, it was called Hamilton Air Force Base and it's now closed. I grew up there in Marin county as my father had to medically retire after a heart attack.

I realize now that it was a great good fortune to grow up there as I was exposed to so many different cultures and people that I would have never encountered otherwise. By the time I was in high school I was attending political rally's and getting involved in women's rights, I volunteered as a clinic escort at Planned Parenthood when I turned 18, and animal rights, where I went to help animals when we had a nasty oil spill. I don't believe my life would have been so well rounded had I grown up somewhere in the South or Midwest.

I went to many concerts at the Fillmore West, in San Francisco, and did a lot of partying in Sausalito, California with friends I went to high school with. We went to Stinson Beach a lot for body surfing and good times. I would love to be out there again, but the cost of living is too steep for me. Loved growing up in California.

Decatur, GA. Summers we had a season ticket to the pool in easy walking distance. It was our babysitter all summer

Dallass Texass. In the beginning my dad was struggling and 7 of us (2 adults and 5 kids) lived in a small, 2 bed. 1 bath house in the poorer part of S. Dallass. We were kids and our parents were there, and loving but mostly hands off so we got to experience a lot of things. The first 3 were boys and we loved to build houses with wood we found. At that house was a septic with a concrete cover and we used that cover as a base for our little houses (that is until one time the septic overflowed. My dad got lucky and we then moved to an older but upscale portion of the city near the only lake (White Rock Lake). We went to an upscale Catholic school and often walked home (3 miles) as mom would often forget to pick us up. Especially during Pecan season. We walked by a large park and would play. There were lots of pecan trees and we would pick them and bring them home. Seems it was less about forgetting and more about being on purpose.
When I was 13 my dad lost his job but found another one in a suburb of Sacramento. The next 4 years were there and we loved it and I made a vow to never live in Dallass again.

Several different towns in Northeastern Ohio

I grew up on the edge between the Navajo and Hopi reservations in northern AZ. My mother's family has roots in the area. (If anyone has heard of or been to Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, my great, great, great, whatever grandfather built it.)
My father was a teacher/school administrator and we were relatively well known in the area and had access to and knowledge of the local culture. As schools went, we had a lot of reservation-linked money but we were something of outcasts socially because of our isolation.
I remember once when the Rams were still in LA that they called and asked if they could use our facilities in Tuba City. They'd heard of the equipment and hoped they could take advantage.

My grandfather homesteaded in Houserock Valley and my mother came from a very remote ranch.

Here are links to imdb pages for a 1951 'featurette' for a movie made near Kanab In southern UT. Sorry I don't know how to link directly to the featurette. It wants you to sign up for imdb. The featurette is called 'Challenge the Wilderness'.
[m.imdb.com] [m.imdb.com]
We had disdain for movie people in general. They tended to be arrogant and destructive (Even more than we were. At least we stayed and helped the community.)

I grew up in a cookie cutter suburban community 25 miles NE of Philadelphia, PA. I was actually born in Philly. While it was horribly polluted it the Delaware River was still a nice river to sit near on Sunday mornings when I'd sneak out of church to pass the time until it was time for mom to come pick us up. The hot summer nights were great as a 12 yo and later after turning 18 partying all night. I left when I was 20.

I grew up in Newark, New Jersey.
I miss living close to New York City, and the Jersey shore.
Ohio is landlocked. I miss being in close proximity to the ocean

Born in 1955, I had the great good fortune that my father chose after his WWII military discharge to stay in the San Francisco Bay Area rather than go back to the small Oklahoma town he grew up in. The Bay Area in the 1960's was one of the epicenters of new ideas. Hippies. the free speech movement, civil rights without the dogs and water cannons of the south, early acceptance of LGBTQ rights, I went to school or regularly encountered people of all races and backgrounds - I could go on. The openness to new ideas I developed is something that has benefited me. I often encounter people who came from less progressive areas (often small towns) who even now struggle to embrace new ideas, missing out on so much.

I grew up in a small town about 150 miles west of where I now live. I am thankful that I don't live there anymore. My mom is buried there, and that is the only reason I've gone back to that town in the last 50 years.