Is moving away from large cities a revolutionary move?
I recently came across a post on the internet by an Indian CEO who recommended that urban Indians should consider moving away from big cities. Not only would this reduce the impact on various metropolitan cities' systems, it'll reduce the global carbon footprint and offer, according to him, a much higher quality of life. He also supplemented this by saying that his company is rolling out work from home facilities for a lot of the employees who have already moved out of bigger cities, and will continue to facilitate work from home for those who are in the process of shifting or considering the shift.
I was positively surprised by this! I for one had not thought that there was any growing concern among urban Indians regarding the state of smaller cities or even villages.
This brings to my mind the fact that there is a sentiment among the people that they want to care about things other than stereotypical concerns for urban youths, and I was very delighted to hear about this!
In fact, there was a survey conducted at this company on who would prefer working from home, and if they had the option to work permanently from home, how many would like to move to smaller towns, cities, or villages? Surprisingly, 50% of the employees wanted to continue working from home, and a total of 67% employees wanted to move to smaller towns or villages! To be completely honest, these numbers were far beyond my imagination.
But that said, I still have some reservations about urban Indians moving to smaller towns and villages, based purely on personal experience. My intention isn't to say that no greater good is possible - it's only to elaborate the possibility of this reality against my own experiences.
A huge culture shock awaits
The fact of the matter, unfortunately, is that there is a great disparity between what people in cities are used to and what people in smaller towns and villages are used to. This statement is neither optimistic nor pessimistic in nature - it is merely factual.
This movement from bigger, clogged cities to smaller areas is likely to be helpful in many ways. Some of them include -
Development across all sectors - while this will largely depend on who decides to move and where, it is likely that over a certain period of time, it will make the right people invest in the projects that will bring a lot of development to these areas.
Increase in GDP as well as self-sufficiency - this will follow the previous point. With more movement ensuring that there is demand, the supply side will take care of the necessary offerings to make sure that there are good services.
Stronger communities - With different people across various cities moving in, there is a chance that stronger communities may develop around developmental axes, which is highly likely owing to the flow of information as well as capital.
However, there are also a lot of possible setbacks to be considered. This is largely because, even though the situation may be optimistic, there is a large possibility of extraneous factors interfering with development. Some of these include:
Literacy
A lot of people in villages have very basic education, if at all. The premise of modern systems, to a large extent, is that people are educated enough to avail them. In the lack of this education, entirely new systems will have to be created.
Gender parity
There is a tremendous difference between men and women in the village where I live. Women do all the work, and yet men get to dictate what the women do. As this is not the case in most cities, there is likely to be a lot of friction to new systems that demand women to be in different roles.
Community beliefs
Many cultures have unique beliefs which may be completely different from those that are carried by current city dwellers. Again, that would most likely lead to a lot of friction in accepting different ideas.
Other structural issues
Beginning from the way roads are laid out, to access to public infrastructure such as libraries (or even toilets) or internet, there is a lot of work to be done at the ground level. But real changes will take time, especially in the times that we are living in, where survival is the immediate priority. Changing the cultures and systems comes later.
Therefore, in summation, there is great promise - but the scope of resistance is just as massive. And if we are able to work through the resistances, then it is possible that there will be great changes ahead.
