Eastern Standard Time: Is that village or town?

I can't imagine what moving to a new state was like prior to our lovely smart phones with built in GPS.  I have lived and died by that little gizmo the past few weeks as I travel around finding all the day to day spots.  You don't realize just how many places you go in a given week without thought until they are all removed.  You need coffee....yea, from where?  Picking up groceries, meeting friends at a bar, grabbing a bite to eat.  Each of these tasks is no longer hopping in the car and driving, it's hopping in the car and grabbing your phone to get directions before starting the car. Like I said, thank gawd for that phone...Can you remember the day when we relied on verbal directions given by our friends over a landline!?  When Thomas Brother's were in the back seat of every car in case you -really- screwed up and missed a turn because the "McDonald's on the left" had shut down.  Crazy times.

 This particular move it is even more exacerbated by the village/town/city structure of the east coast.  On the west coast it's pretty simple.  There is the name of the town, and if you don't belong to a town you are simply in an unincorporated county. 

Out here on the east coast, where colonialist lived and the idea of America and its states grew up around them there is a decidedly more complex answer to the "where do you live" question.  Locals do not bat an eye and clearly all understand each other's answers to that question.  I, with my west coast lag, had a decidedly more stumbled approach when learning my way.  Below is a graphic that is for example purposes only.

As you can see when someone says, "oh it's in Goshen".  It can mean several things.  It can mean the village of Goshen, which we would call a town center, or it can me the larger town of Goshen.  Also, the city of Middletown (cities are defined as more than 50,000 citizens) is located in the town of Goshen.  Please note, that "village" "town" and "city" all have clear and distinct meaning out here with definitions based in historic or population rules. 

I alone, with my west coast eyes, seem to find this an amusing way to structure things.  Cities should not be within a town. Towns by definition are smaller than a city!  Right? Oh silly west coast girl.

When I ask a clarifying question to ensure I'm heading to the correct place people often raise eyebrows and look around to see if my caretaker has lost me...because everyone seems to know what to call "a place" even if that "place" to a stranger like me, actually has three names.  And in a place that calls New York City people "Citidiots" being marked as an outsider is not aways a great thing. 

So far, this has been the most marked difference between the west and east coasts in terms of getting around. 

From all of the villages I have visited I can say that they are all of the same structure, but there doesn't seem to be a chain store anywhere to be found.  They each have a diner, usually named after the village they are in, a couple of neighborhood bars, bakery, hardware store, salon, deli, maybe a gas station, and a smattering of mom and pop restaurants. Oh and a big freakin' church, it's always the tallest thing in town by quite a bit.  The really old kind, back from when the church wanted to make you feel small and not included in god's great plan unless you showed up and paid your alms.  If you want the comforts of Applebee's or Target you must get out of the village and go to a city...which of course means you are still in a town.