Removing the rest: Why do young people leave cities
Dmitry Kurkin
The Japanese government is going to pay 3 million Yen (1.76 million rubles at the current rate) to those residents of Tokyo who decide to leave the city, reports the HNK channel. Thus, the authorities will try to unload the infrastructure of the capital: a third of the country already lives in it (about 38 million inhabitants), and this figure is growing, despite the fact that the total population of Japan, on the contrary, is gradually decreasing.
This is perhaps the most vivid example of total urbanization that science fiction writers like to depict, drawing a picture of the future: the process is so inevitable that the government is even ready to allocate subsidies if only people stay away from the city. But even in Tokyo, as observers note, residents are beginning to think that an overloaded metropolis may not be the most convenient place to live.
“People are fleeing from New York with frightening speed” is not the beginning of a dystopia, but the headline of an article in the New York Post that refers to data on internal migration published about two years ago by the US Census Bureau. The agency reports that since 2010, about 900 thousand people have left New York to other regions of the country. It is unlikely that one of the largest cities in the world will soon become deserted - during the same time, 850,000 migrants from other countries replenished New York. But the outflow really looks solid and makes analysts ask: "Why do people leave big cities?"
Traditionally, those who have overstepped the psychological age line have escaped away from the hustle and stress, and the age shift of priorities still remains an important reason why people prefer a quiet pastoral life and a slightly less poisoned environment to the noise of the metropolis. This is the stereotype of "removal for peace" for those who have achieved everything they wanted in their careers, and now they want to rest.
But arguing about migration from cities, researchers are increasingly turning to the demographic layer, which is called Millennial. For them, leaving the metropolis does not necessarily mean deaf downshifting. The predictions that the Internet and the possibility of remote work will lead to people migrating back to the village en masse did not come true - it turned out that many people need to maintain a developed network of social connections besides sustainable Wi-Fi - but the logic in these forecasts is still was, and the arguments in favor of the move remain effective.
Young people who choose life outside the city, often explain their decision by the desire to slow down life
The first and most obvious of the arguments is the high price of living in a big city, starting with gradually rising housing prices (removable or mortgage) to everyday living expenses. For people, this is a sufficient reason to settle in the suburbs and the nearest residential areas, and to get to work by train: this daily commuter migration in Moscow and London is about one million people. For those who get tired five times a week to have breakfast and dinner in a train car, the final relocation from the city becomes a logical step. Especially when it comes to families who live in an apartment the size of a matchbox - but not far from the center - no longer seems romantic.
Another reason indirectly related to the first one is the lack of work, which turns the move from option to necessity. One of the reasons for the high level of migration from New York was undoubtedly the financial crisis at the end of the two thousandths: the 2016 report notes that although the city recovered from the recession as a whole, the incomes of its residents never returned to the pre-crisis level (29-year employed, whose earnings fell by ten percent relative to the figures of 2000), and many millennials, even after receiving a good education, can hardly find a job. Between potentially higher wages, but an unstable employment market and financial stability, they often choose the latter - and this does not necessarily require a serious jolt, such as the 2008 crisis.
The stress factor most often explains the moving out of town to people of middle and older generations. But the twenty-year-old need for comfort is no less - or even more - acute: according to estimates by the Humberts real estate agency, the number of immigrants (from cities to rural areas) in the age group from 20 to 29 years increased by 30 percent in 2016. This is partly due to the growing gap between housing prices, but at the same time young people who choose life outside the city often explain their decision by the desire to slow down life. "I miss Hekney for some things in [the London area], but now I spend the morning outdoors and work a little in the evenings," says John Ellison, a programmer who left London for more than 20 Denver, and returning, was unable to get used back to increased speeds - and moved to Brighton. The same effect of decompression explains, for example, migration from the countries of South-East Asia to Vancouver, which has become the "most Asian city outside of Asia": amid Asian cities, Canada’s third most populous city seems to be a quiet and deserted resort.
Of course, lower speeds, cheaper housing, clean air, and a sharing economy alone do not create an idyll. For the Russian hinterland, the massive influx of citizens looking for a quiet life seems to be rather a hypothetical model than the immediate future. But historically, ruralization does not always come from a good life or from the pursuit of the romantic ideals of a “beautiful village”. This is just another arrangement, which for many people becomes something that more closely matches their needs and priorities.
Photo: eurobanks - stock.adobe.com, smallable