I've written a few stories set more or less in places I've lived, and always took the approach of fictionalizing the location in the vein of Faulkner's or King's fictional counties bordering their real life stomping grounds. I tend to add some allegorical magical realist or full-on fantasy elements to the setting (I hadn't really thought about it before, but thinking about the stories, it's definitely a trend
).
I don't expect to read anything set in my little hometown unless I write it, and only rarely see any mention of the nearest substantial city (I don't think I've ever read anything fully set there). For the city I'm in now,
American Splendor was a lot of fun, and there was even some appeal to the
Wilderness Empire series being set all over the state where I've lived most of my adult life, but those are autobiography and historical fiction, respectively. I'm aware of a set of detective novels set in Cleveland, but that genre isn't really my thing, a certain wizard-for-hire being the exception
