I am currently playing in my home town casino that spreads plenty of games but takes a $6 rake. If my bank roll allows me to buy in for 200, would I be better off playing a short stack strategy at a 3-5 or buy in for 200 at the 2-3?

My reasoning is that generally pots will be larger at 3/5 per 6$ take and I generally find that I play a tighter value town style game anyway so short stacking isn't a huge issue for me.

It just seems like even if I raise 5 bb pre (15) and take down the flop with a cbet they are taking 6 of my 15-20 profit. It's brutal. Should I try raising to 20 pre and seeing if I get successful calls at 2-3 first? Any advice is appreciated even just general thoughts on the concept.

The more money on the table, the less rake matters. You want to play with larger stacks, not smaller. I'd find another place to play if they are raking $6 on every flop.

Try to analyze the rake structure and figure out the optimal open amount to avoid paying the maximum rake for small pots.

For example at my old casino I played mainly a $1/3 game and the rake was $1 jackpot post flop, $2 jackpot at $30 or above, the main rake was $1 at $10, $2 at $20, $3 at $30, $4 at $40+. So it is probably similar at your game being $6 max and $6 in most raised pots even on the flop.

To counter this (maybe I'm just really nitty but I thought about it a LOT), I would NEVER raise $10 pre! Since you will always be paying the max rake on the pot as a percentage! Ex - $3 rake total on a $21 pot if just the BB calls your $10 raise.

If no limpers my standard open was $12, so that if the BB called me the pot was $25, and if both blinds called me it was $36 and the percentage of rake paid was less which adds up if you play a lot of hours.

If one or more limpers I raised $18+ so then the max was almost always reached and anytime you can make the rake less than 10% of the pot you are now in profit land which is why short stacking makes it really hard to beat the rake, and why, as Venice said, you really want to be at a game with a lot of money so you don't care about the rake and it becomes a small thing since most pots will go over the size where the rake is painful.

If you arent at a table like this, move if you can, if you can't move, raise the right amount to make the extra $1-2 per pot

Just re-read your post, if I were you I would play the 3-5 game (with a solid SS strategy), OR play the smaller game and just open for $18-20+ EVERY time! After the 3rd time people will start calling, and thereby making bigger mistakes because they will be tired of folding to your biggish raises with their limps - just be aware of someone trying to limp/trap, but it shouldn't be a big deal b/c $20 isn't much to lose anyway and you can make it back quickly from bad players.