Towns in America tend to be organic in the sense that they sprang up where they were convenient. Railroads and water were major factors.
The town where I grew up sprang up at the crossing of two railroads. Before long a grain mill sprang up along with a market, hardware etc. The town where I live now had a railroad and a river that was dammed to power a mill. My house sits on the site where the icehouse was when they cut ice out of the lake.
My home town was DeFuniak Springs, FL. It arose when the railroad came. It also became something of a resort town when the Chautauqua made it their Winter headquarters. Of course Chautauqua, New York was the Summer and main headquarters.
It had a population of 5200 when I was a kid back in the 50s and 60s and is still just about that size. A friend of mine who lives in Pensacola, married a much younger girl who was a model. She is taking college courses and one day they visited a couple of places including DeFuniak on a geology field trip.
She told her husband that it was the prettiest little town she had ever seen.