What is better a town or a village?

Answer 1

The answer to the question is subjective, which is to say it was better to live in the one you preferred. My guess is that most people who are alive today would have preferred a town, at least.

The Middle Ages had the following communities:

• A hamlet, which was a group of houses close together, and just about nothing else. It was usually in a farming area, and was surrounded by a green belt of fields, meadows, woods, and so on. The serfs on a manor typically lived in either a hamlet or a village on the manor, but if they lived in a hamlet, then there was very probably a village nearby, as there would be a church built for them otherwise.
• A village, which was like a hamlet, except it had a church. A village never had a permanent market, but did have a green belt. There was very often a village on a manor, and there might have been a hamlet as well.
• A town, which could have had more than one church, or it might have had a permanent market, or there might have been some break in the green belt, such as a adjacent town or city.
• A city, which had a cathedral in the earlier times, though later it could simply have had a royal charter.

Another way to compare village and town in the focus of the economy. In village life the focus is on farming and herding. There are a few craftsmen and professionals (a smith, a carpenter, a miller, perhaps a few others depending on the size of the village) but most people are focused on growing crops and raising animals. Villages are a net exporter of food.

Towns, the smallest of which were no larger than a large village, were focused on crafting and trade. Most of the people who lived in towns were either craftsmen or merchants, or worked for them. Towns are a net importer of food. There would have been a permanent market with regular market days, and villagers would have come at intervals to sell their surplus and buy manufactured goods that they could not secure in their own village. Towns, unlike the village, were much more likely to have accommodation for travelers such as Inns and taverns. Gloucester, a medium sized English town of several thousand, had eleven Inns in 1455, but keep in mind this is both late in the period, and is likely higher than average due to Gloucester having significant pilgrimage traffic. The typical village, by comparison, had no Inn and only ad hoc taverns, typically someone's house after brewing a large batch of ale.

There is a link below.

Answer 2

It is based upon opinion more than anything. Lare cities may have more facilities but aren't quiet like small villages in most cases.