Why People Keep Moving to Cities Even When Cities Are Unaffordable
June 28, 2025 · Frisian News
Despite soaring rents and housing costs, young adults continue flooding into major cities. Experts point to job markets and social networks, not rational calculation, as the real draw.
A 29-year-old accountant in London pays 1,400 pounds monthly for a cramped studio flat while earning 35,000 pounds a year. She could move north, buy a house outright, and cut her housing costs by 80 percent. She stays anyway. This pattern repeats across the developed world: people rationally should flee expensive cities, yet they do not. The question is why.
The answer lies not in economics but in human behavior. Cities offer concentrated job markets where young people find work without years of struggle. A creative worker in Amsterdam has dozens of studios within reach. The same person in a small town faces a single advertising agency or nothing. Job mobility matters far more than housing math. Most people never run the numbers; they follow the jobs and hope the housing works out.
But jobs are only half the story. People move to cities because their friends are there, or because they hope their friends will come. Cities offer density of culture, dating pools, and social proof. Young adults see peers thriving in Berlin or Barcelona and feel pressure, real or imagined, to be there too. A quiet rural town cannot compete with that pull, no matter how affordable. The city promises connection; the countryside promises isolation. Most people choose connection even at ruinous cost.
Governments and city planners often assume housing prices will fix themselves through supply and demand. They do not. Instead, cities fill with expensive flats rented to people who cannot afford them, while cheaper towns and villages empty. The process feeds itself: as young people leave small towns, services shrink, making those places less attractive still. Cities grow denser and pricier while entire regions wither. Planning committees sit in town halls and wonder why migration flows do not respond to their models.
The hard truth is that cities work as sorting machines. They concentrate opportunity, and therefore attract ambitious people willing to pay any price. That remains true even when the price approaches insanity. Until someone invents a way to move jobs and culture to the countryside, the migration will continue. Empty regional towns and overheated city apartments are not a crisis to solve but a fact of modern life.
In 29-jerich boekhoalster yn Londen betelt 1.400 pûn op 'e moanne foar in lyts studioapartemintsje, wylst se 35.000 pûn yn 't jier fertsjinnet. Se koe nei it noarden ferhuze, in hûs keapje en har huskekosten mei 80 persint ferminderje. Se bliuwt dochs. Dit patroan herhellet harren yn 'e ûntwikkele wrâld: minsken soene rasjonaal djoere stêden ferlitte moatte, mar dwaan dat net. De fraach is wêrom.
It antwurd lijt net yn ekonomy mar yn minsklich gedrach. Stêden jouwe konsintrearre arbeidsmarkten wêr jonge minsken wurk fine sûnder jierren fan striuwe. In kreative arbeider yn Amsterdam hat tintelje studio's wêrby. Deselde persoan yn in lyts dorp stiet foar ien reklaambureau of neat. Wurkmobeality telt folle mear as huskerekken. De measte minsken berekkenje nea de getallen; se folgje de banen en hoopje dat de huskening útkomt.
Mar banen binne alinnich 't healve ferhaal. Minsken ferhuze nei stêden om't har freonen dêr binne, of om't se hoopje dat har freonen dêrkomen. Stêden jouwe tichtheit fan kultuer, datingsjansten en sosjaal bewiis. Jonge folwoeksen sjogge leeftydsgenoaten bloeiend yn Berlijn of Barcelona en fielen druk, echt of foarsjoen, om dêr te wêzen. In stil plattelânsdarp kin dêretsjin net opbokse, nettsjinsteande hoe betelje. De stêd biedt ferbining; it plattelân biedt isolaasje. De measte minsken kieze ferbining, sels tsjin ferrûnende kosten.
Regerringen en stêdplanners fertoarskuie faak dat huskeprizen himsels troch fraach en oanboal sille oanpasse. Dat bart net. Ynstee dêrfan ferfolje stêden harren mei djoere flats ferhierd oan minsken dy't se harren net permittearje kinne, wylst goedkeapere doarpen en doarpskernen leegrinne. It proses fodet harren sels: as jonge minsken lyts doarpen ferlitte, krimpje tsjinsten, wêr't dy plakken noch minder oantrekljend wurde. Stêden wurde tichter en djoerder wylst heule regio's fersweltsje. Planningskommisjes sitte yn riedselen en freagje harren ôf wêrom migraasjestromen net op har modellen reagearje.
De heard wierheid is dat stêden as sortearders wurkje. Se konsintrearre mooglikheden, en trekke dêrom yntelligens minsken oan dy't wille elke priis betelje. Dat bliuwt wier sels wannear de priis nei wânsin giet. Oant immen in manier útvindet om banen en kultuer nei it plattelân te ferpleatse, sil de migraasje fuortgean. Leege regionale doarpen en ouer-ferhite stêdappartemintsjes binne gjin krisis om op te losjen mar in gegeffen fan it moderne libben.
Published June 28, 2025 · Frisian News · Ljouwert, Fryslân