The coronavirus pandemic encourages people to look for alternatives to expensive metropolitan areas, the shortcomings and weaknesses of which experts have been talking about for a long time. The pandemic changes the course of the usual development of a self-centered civilization, turning the centers of the world economy into epicenters of contagion and putting their future in doubt. The coronavirus crisis highlighted the weaknesses of megacities and accelerated the processes of decentralization.
**
I know firsthand about life in the metropolis. I was lucky enough to move to Moscow from a small village in the Krasnodar Territory, to plunge headlong into the rhythm of the big city, to make a career. And, after 12 years of life in the capital, with the arrival of the pandemic, to move to an unhurried southern town, starting life with a clean slate.
I can well understand people, especially young people, who are attracted to metropolitan areas. Education, choice of employment, the opportunity to implement the most creative ideas, social circle, theaters, movies, clubs and so on – all this makes our lives full of meaning, energy and a sense of demand and success. That’s on the one hand.
There is another side, hidden from view. Large social disparities, difficult access to buying and renting housing in comfortable neighborhoods and conditions, kilometer-long traffic jams draining human resources. Many people live outside the cities, commuting an hour or more to work and school. Work also often requires one hundred percent commitment without a break for lunch or personal life.
Of course, I’m not saying there’s one scenario for everyone. There is an energy in big cities that inspires, encourages, gives motivation to move forward, to your goal, no matter what. And at the same time, it devastates, depersonalizes a person in a multimillion-dollar mass. You either race with everyone else in the common harness, or you drop out as you go along. There’s no time for sentimentality. It is necessary to have time to “spin” in all spheres in order to keep up, to succeed, to taste all the charms that the residents of the periphery are deprived of.
There is not enough time for everything, so sooner or later you have to choose and prioritize: work or family or personal life, leisure time, friends, studies and so on – what is more important? It’s hard to choose.
Personally, I did not have enough time for friendly meetings, heart-to-heart talks, and just to find myself in this life. It was also very lacking in silence, when the head is free from city noise and extraneous thoughts. The flow of the city makes it impossible to stop and think. This, I believe, is a great disadvantage of living in a metropolis. Even locked up at home, there is no escape from the atmosphere of pressure. I can’t stop feeling like I have to run. If you stopped, you fell behind. From whom, what? It’s not clear. But we have to run and figure it out as we go. Not many people, I believe, manage to survive this race, preserving their life reference points and values. This struggle – internal and external – makes someone stronger, breaks someone, makes someone go head over heels.
Today’s crisis, in my opinion, has exposed the hidden side of life in megacities. He showed how people, despite the abundance of material opportunities in big cities, remain only mechanically connected to each other.
I think that the original idea of any city should be the need to bring people together to organize a better life, not to fight for life.
Perhaps today’s exodus of people from megacities will help us all rethink our goals, our relationships with each other, and find a form of life that will bring us together despite the distance.
