YA Dystopian Short Story called "The Blemish". The locals are trying to show off their village/ town. An area of town is called "The Blemish" where people are basically really old-fashioned by comparison. Read in 1990s.

[Nicole]

There are some authority figures visiting the village to assess it. Most of the town is great, according to the town guides, but they are embarrassed by a secluded area of the town that they call 'the blemish', and they try to avoid it in their tour of the town. However during the tour the authority figures notice the area (perhaps a horse & cart pulls up and they ask about it?), so after the authority figures have visited the main part of the town they insist on seeing this ‘Blemish’ area as well. It turns out the authority figures really like this Blemish area and tell the rest of the town they should learn from it.

I remember in the Blemish part of town they had burials (contrasting with the cremations in the rest of the town), and I think they contrasted a football stadium (with 22 people playing - soccer? - and thousands of people just watching) with lots of the Blemish people informally playing soccer. I think the people in the Blemish also maybe used horses and carts?

I think at the end the authority figures said something about the presence of the Blemish saving the whole town on the 'report card' or whatever they were using to assess the town.

I would love to read it again, but I have no idea when it was written (just that I read it at high school between 1993 and 1998) or who it was written by. I don't know if it was published in a collection of short stories or if it was in a magazine or something. I just have very few source details.

Thank you for getting this far!