Pros and Cons of Living in Rural Areas
There has been some form of scarcity scare on land to diminish some day. Where by if not careful, some individuals will own no land thus subjecting them to live life on rent. But facts on the ground to prove otherwise. There is still a vast amount of land that has not been inhabited by humans. Even if the population exploded to over 20 billion people on the earth, there would still be land uninhabited. Even in China today, a country with the highest population in the world still has vast amount of land uninhabited by humans. Besides that, China has well built ghost cities. These are cities where little to no one lives there.
The only problem is that people tend to cluster together in cities. The reasons are simple, the more people around the more variety of services offered at a competitive price. Other than that, people are naturally lazy. People in cities do get most tasks done with ease thanks to electricity. More factories are prone to open in cities that are serviced with electricity and abundant supply of cheap labour. In turn, cities have a propensity to be a center for raw materials processing from across countries.
As a result, land cities tend to be pricey especially in urban areas or near the Central Business District (CBD). As cities grow, land gets expensive also in the shanety compounds. As things gets too busy, noisy, polluted and out of control, you might as well consider living in the rural area.
Lets start with the pros of living in the rural areas.
Vast amount of land
Rural areas do have vast amount of land that can be used for land intensive production activities such as farming, livestock rearing, bee keeping, ranching, orchards, private forests, data centers, recreation activities and the list is endless. All the products produced here are of great value to city dwellers.
Less pollution
Pollution comes in various forms. Noise pollution, sight pollution, air pollution, water pollution and land pollution. All these type of pollution can affect one’s productivity and health. Rural areas usually have a neutral condition for health life provided dangerous animals and insects are fended off.
Cheap labour
Rural areas have a number of people who are willing to work at a cheap price. Having a good business strategy, various products and services can be produced in rural areas and exported outside the area.
Quality of life
Even though the quality of life is relatively poor to most rural dwellers, well lived life can be achieved with the help of technological advancement such as renewable energies. Renewable energies can provide lighting and heating for the house. It can also power electronic devise. Water can be drawn from natural springs with PH levels and minerals well balanced. The quality of air is equally breath taking.
Quality of food
Food eaten in urban areas are mostly referred to junky foods. These are foods that are highly processed and provides little nutritional value to people. Apart from that, people in urban areas are accustomed to eating the same time of food lacking variety and more susceptible chronicle illnesses. In rural areas, these can be avoided when one decides to plant variety of plants. For example, Israel is known to be the only country that exports the most variety of fruits despite being a small nation.
So what are the cons of living in the rural areas.
Distant places
Rural areas are far spaced between different points. Without any form of motorized transportation system would be very tedious when accessing those points. Unlike in urban areas where taxis and public transports are readily available, in rural areas you are at the mercy of the drivers you are hiking. That would mean less effective.
Critical Services
It is only that things are slowly changing around the world. Otherwise the supply of services such as electricity and water in most parts of rural Africa is in poor or lacking. People in rural areas have to move distances to fetch water and fire wood for use at house hold level. Electricity does provide a form of entertainment through electronic devises for those living in urban areas. But modern technology through solar system is slowly catching up as an alternative to electricity.
Access to goods and services
Most goods and services are produced in cities and distributed in cities. Therefore accessing these goods and services are usually difficult and expensive. Simple products like soap, sacks, chemicals and even drinks can be very frustrating to get. If at all you can set up a mechanism to produce most of these things by yourself, then that is well and good.
Access to social services
Social services such as schools, clinics and Churches are distances away from one another. Depending on your location, it would be difficult to access these services.
Animals and Insects
Left unattended to, animals and insects do cause harm to so many people living in the rural areas. For example, the mosquito has been one of the largest killers of humans in Africa through the disease called malaria.
Help when in need
Better is a neighbour that is near than a brother far off. Although people do cluster together also in rural areas, in certain areas villages are far apart from each other. In a case of an emergency, it would be difficult to get help from people around. Isolation wouldn’t be an ideal solution, creating a network of communication amongst the neighbours would work well in times of need.
The years 2020 to 2021 global pandemic has redefined the way people can work. It brought about work from home concepts which many people seemed to like. Some people created stronger family bonds whilst working from home. The need to commute to and fro home and work became irrelevant. The most crucial thing during this period was the internet connectivity. This meant people could now choose where and how to live as long as there is an internet connections. Not necessarily near a place of work. In a case you still have an option to live anywhere and still work remotely, you can weigh the pros and and cons of living in rural area and see which would suit you best.