Living in a city: pleasure and frustration
With the onset of agricultural and industrial revolution in 18 th century the steady
balance between urban and rural population, that was necessitated by a relative
inefficiency of farming and animal husbandry, has been broken. More and more
people started moving to the cities in search of a job or better life opportunities,
leaving the fields in the countryside behind. This process, called urbanisation, was
accelerated even more due to various breakthroughs in fields of medicine, vehicle
production and chemistry: the population of the cities was steadily rising, while
people in the rural parts of the country started losing their jobs to steel horses and
modern pesticides. This, obviously, led to huge problems for both rural and urban
population, which is why we’ll take a closer look at both advantages and
disadvantages of living in a city.
First of all, it is much easier to find a steady good-paying job in a city than in a
country-side. This factor was a major driving force in urbanisation, as droves of
people fled from the instability of agricultural industry, which is extremely dependent
on the weather conditions. This phenomenon is usually called rural flight. Of course,
lack of job prospects is not the only reason for this occurrence, which leads us to the
second advantage of living in a city: a greater accessibility of different amenities.
This may include public transport, better road and pavement conditions as well as an
overall city plan that often encourages things being as tightly packed as possible. Due
to this, in a city almost everything you may need is usually less than an hour away, be
it a grocery store, a mall or your place of work. This, of course, is not the case for
village dwellers, which often have to own a car to simply get by, while the nearest
decent grocery, let alone a mall, may be tens of kilometres away. Then there is an
overall quality of life, which is way higher in the city: hospitals, shops and schools
are numerous and provide a higher-quality goods and services. Got sick in a village?
Better hope your local general practitioner is not some hack without an actual degree.
There is also a fact that everything costs more in the countryside – chain stores
usually have a huge mark-up due to logistics costs, while local small shops set their
prices way too high, as they have no competition. Third of all, country life is usually
not for young people – the city, however small it is, provides more prospects of
entertainment and the nightlife in the countryside is basically nonexistent. Even the
smallest cities often have at least a couple of cinemas or theatres, some bars and pubs,
restaurants and cafes, which are rarely found in a village.
But, city life does come with its disadvantages. Firstly, there is congestion and
overall overcrowding. The sheer amount of people and transport even in a small town
is enough to create traffic jams and long waiting queues as well as crowd the streets.
In the biggest of cities there is no concept of personal space – busses and metro trains
are stuffed, people elbow each other on the sidewalks and in shops; peace and quiet is
non-existent with constant buzzing and car honking. Secondly, the pollution in the
cities is way higher, due to increased number of industrial buildings, transport and
housing. Some cities, like Beijing and Moscow have ominous clouds of smog
looming over their parts day and night. In Beijing people are advised to wear
respiration masks while outside. The whole idea of that must seem crazy to a
countryside dweller. Thirdly, the communities in village are more tightly-knit that of
a town, creating more safety nets for its members. It’s much easier to get help in a
countryside, where everyone knows everyone, than in a town. The amount of people
in city can also negatively affect the mental health of some individuals, as feelings of
being forlorn and forgotten may arise. It is also harder to make friends in the city. In
the countryside you are basically stuck with the same 100-200 people in your
neighbourhood which forces you to interact with them and hopefully make friends,
whilst in the city you have to go out of the way to get acquainted with new people.
Overall, the choice of living a city or in the countryside is up to the person itself
and must depend on what their values and priorities.