You're the only other critic I've read to point that out! It's not a song aimed at small town people. The audience for this song is suburbanites who wish they lived in a small town, or who hold these ideas of what small town life is like. I've been hearing from plenty of people who live in small towns who say, their life is nothing like it is in the song, but not made the connection between that and suburban fantasies of small town living.

And yeah, Aldean is no Hank Williams or Johnny Cash. I prefer the Old School Country "artists", who actually had something to say and wrote that into their songs.