If you're writing a story set in your area and you want your readers to feel like they can really relate, then you want to be both vague and detailed. You want your readers to be thinking, "Ooh, I know where this is!" (even though they're wrong because you are making it up) and also, "God, I know someone exactly like that! I wonder if the author actually knows them and used them as inspiration for the character?"

It grounds a story in reality without making it so specific that readers lose that feeling of connection. A lot of English classics are written in this way, meant to feel familiar and relatable without involving any real-life people or places or causing the inhabitants of those places to feel maligned or made fun of. Especially when the setting is some small town or village where everyone really knows each other - you can't go around turning your neighbors into fictional idiots and cheaters and criminals. But you can imply that there are idiots, cheaters, and criminals in a small village...just a few miles away or in the next county or over there in Sussex/Yorkshire/Wales/etc. and all the readers will nod their heads and think, "Ha! Nice try but I know you are describing Lady B---ton and her ridiculous son, Lord J--r B---ton! They are a menace! W--shire is just chock full of reprobates and rogues!"

It's all so deliciously gossipy and scandalous! (without actually slandering real people)