What attracts a modern person to city life? Image and lifestyle in urban areas

The positive aspects of city life include having a comfortable apartment. In this situation, there are no problems with heating, electricity, or garbage disposal. In addition, the apartment has cold and hot water and other amenities of housing and communal services. As a rule, when living within the city, there are no difficulties with getting to work. If your work activity is carried out close to home, you can walk, but if it’s far away, you can get there by metro, taxi, personal car or public transport. Preschool and school institutions are usually located within walking distance from home. And retail outlets can be located directly on the ground floor of a residential building. The city has many entertainment venues.

In addition to the advantages, living in the city also has disadvantages. The apartment, although well-appointed, has limited space. This is especially felt when organizing a feast with a certain number of guests. The walls of the apartment have low sound insulation and do not allow loud music, singing, dancing, since all this disturbs the neighbors. In multi-storey buildings, there is a risk of being flooded by neighbors from above and the risk of flooding the residents from the lower floor themselves. The courtyards of houses are constantly filled with cars. There is practically no opportunity to breathe clean air in the city.

Advantages and disadvantages of living outside the city

There are many advantages of living outside the city. You can build yourself a house of any size. The main thing is not to limit financial possibilities. You can also arrange it according to your own wishes. It becomes possible to organize parties with any number of guests. You can sing and dance until late - the neighbors will not make any complaints. In addition, guests can be accommodated overnight in guest rooms. It is very convenient that you don’t have to go far to pick up your car, since the garage is located next to the house. Outside the city, you can build your own bathhouse, gazebo, or lay out a lawn. There is an opportunity to start a household plot. An additional advantage is the presence of a river or forest in the nearby area. Away from the city, the air is clean and fresh.

Country life has its difficulties. In most cases, you cannot do without a personal car. Since it is not possible to get to the desired place by public transport, a certain dependence on the vehicle appears. Daily gas costs can be daunting. Living outside the city during the cold season can be dangerous. Roads covered with snow do not always allow you to leave even if urgently necessary. In addition to all this, you need to solve the issue of work and education of children - go to the city every day or settle in your locality. There is practically no entertainment in such places, which can become a burden for a family leading a secular lifestyle.

Thus, it is much more practical to live in the city. It is convenient to have a country house instead of a summer house. In the summer you can go there to take a break from the hustle and bustle, barbecue, breathe clean air, and, having gained strength, return to your favorite city.

Humans are very interesting creatures who are usually unhappy with many things that happen in their lives. However, such dissatisfaction is one of those psychological mechanisms that moves us forward to new sensations, emotions and experiences. This is what allows you to break out of your usual routine and rush headlong into the unknown, for example, change your place of residence, moving from a noisy metropolis to a small provincial town, while avoiding many of the difficulties that will certainly await unprepared downshifters.

In the life of almost every person living in a metropolis, there comes a moment when he understands that the frantic rhythm, the endless pursuit of money, status and the resulting inability to fully relax makes him think about changing his place of residence. Now this phenomenon (downshifting) has become widespread among residents of large cities who dream of peace and quiet. In this article we will look at one of the types of downshifting, namely: moving to a small city.

What are the advantages of such a solution?

You will forget what it is like to live in a crowd, queues, traffic jams, polluted air, lack of free time and fear of all kinds of criminal elements and people from the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Great, but how can we avoid the many problems that newcomers face in a new place? Read on and you will definitely find out everything.

First of all, in your new place you will need to acquire. As a rule, there will be no difficulties with him. Prices are lower than in the capitals (renting a 1-room apartment will cost you only 7-12 thousand rubles). Plus, many apartments are rented from , so you won't have to worry about paying a realtor commission. If you decide to settle in a new place on a permanent basis, then a 1-room apartment in the province will cost an average of 1.5-1.8 million rubles.

So, you have already thought and assessed what kind of apartment you need and whether you are moving for permanent residence or not. The second important issue you must decide is work. Considering that in the provinces they have often not even heard of such specialists who are in demand, for example, in Moscow, it makes sense to look for some kind of remote work. This will allow you to both do what you love and earn an order of magnitude more than what employers pay employees in small towns. Another problem with finding work in the provinces is that the so-called “bread” places through which financial flows pass are usually occupied by “insider” people in small towns. Therefore, remote work can become a kind of lifeline for you.

Don't lose touch with your friends. In the provinces, you may have difficulty communicating with local residents. For them, you will be a metropolitan eccentric raging with fat, while they are supposedly busy with hard work to earn their livelihood.

What's not to like?

Sooner or later you may get bored. A meager range of goods, a very small number of exhibitions, museums, concerts, trainings, conferences and seminars. Perhaps only cinemas and nightclubs are in complete order. After the bustling metropolis, you may get the impression that nothing happens here at all.

Poor infrastructure. Broken roads, lack of street lighting, sidewalks uncleaned from snow - this is an incomplete list of what you may have to face.

Increased attention from others. One of the side effects of the fact that in small towns there are significant problems with leisure time, and this is compensated by the fact that people begin to look at each other more: who is dressed how, who traveled where, what they bought, etc.

Be that as it may, know that the move will not be hassle-free, and you will have to overcome some difficulties in the new place. In this article I told you about the advantages and disadvantages of living in the provinces. How to use this information is up to you. I just wish you: “Have a nice journey!”

When I studied at the university, there were several people from villages in my group. I always heard that they want to stay in the city, that there are no prospects in the village. I agree with them, I think, basically, all young people are trying to move to the city and take advantage of all the opportunities.

How is rural life different from urban life?

I only came to the village to visit my grandmother during the summer holidays. Of course, their life is completely different. I have lived in the city since birth, but so far the most that attracts me is the acquisition of a summer cottage. There is a river in our city, and having a small house next to it is quite a good idea.

First of all, in a village or village, the absence of large industrial enterprises is striking. Nowhere will you find a factory in the middle of the village. Sometimes such objects are built outside the city, but, all the same, settlements near them are considered at least an urban-type settlement. Of course, all villagers keep livestock. But one should not think that people in villages and villages still live without any amenities. It all depends on finances; you can build a comfortable house in any village.

One of the biggest differences is the people. The rural population is much friendlier and more sociable. For example, I don’t even know all the neighbors in my building, but there people know each other personally.

Pros and cons of living in the city

Each person chooses a place to his liking. But, whatever one may say, living in the city has many advantages:

developed infrastructure;
convenient transport system;
more vacancies and higher wages;
many educational institutions;
developed medicine.

But not all city residents are satisfied with their lives, and many even seriously think about moving to some village. The reasons are as follows:

bad ecology;
high crime rate;
heavy workload;
deterioration of physical and mental condition.

As a rule, the desire to lead a more relaxed lifestyle among city residents arises with age; I think this is due to fatigue from the too fast pace of life.

Lifestyle concept. Lifestyle is a general sociological category used to characterize: 1) a set of specific forms of human life in all spheres of social life, developing into a qualitatively defined, ordered way of life; 2) a set of social conditions and ways of realizing people’s needs.

Isolating the urban lifestyle as a special concept is associated with the specifics of the urban living environment and allows us to capture the social characteristics of interaction at an average theoretical level in the sense of R. Merton. This concept reflects the idea of determining people’s behavior by the features of their environment: from its geographical to mental characteristics.

Lifestyle can be analyzed from quantitative and qualitative aspects. The first side is described by the concepts and characteristics of “way of life” and “standard of living”; the second – the concepts of “quality of life” and “lifestyle”.

Way of life- a socio-economic category used to characterize the main features of work and life of representatives of a certain social group, society or ethno-geographical group. This concept captures, first of all, the production characteristics of life activity. The urban lifestyle in this regard is characterized as industrial.

Standard of living– a set of quantitatively measured lifestyle parameters. Analyzing the standard of living, we can distinguish two aspects: 1) psychophysiological - pace, rhythm, intensity, etc., 2) economic - standard of living, expressing the degree of satisfaction of the material and cultural needs of people in the sense of provision of consumer goods: wages, income , volume of consumption of goods and services, level of consumption of goods, length of working and free time, living conditions, level of education, health care, etc. There are various indicators of the standard of living and methods for calculating them.

The quality of life- this is a measure of interaction between the environment and its use, a measure of assessing the degree of satisfaction of material and spiritual needs that cannot be directly quantified (the content of work, leisure, level of recreation, level of social comfort, level of personal self-realization, etc.). A number of authors include here the quality of housing, the quality of functioning of social institutions, personal physical safety, social security, etc., etc. The list is huge, right down to the aesthetics of the environment. This is practically a list of everything that is needed. The concept is used for comparative analysis of lifestyles.

Life style - a socio-psychological category to characterize the everyday behavior of people and social groups. This concept focuses attention on the subjective side of everyday life: the specifics of motivation, methods and forms of justifying actions, forms of behavior habitual for certain groups, methods of self-realization and self-presentation. The stylistic features of life are local and individual in nature.

Essential characteristics of urban lifestyle:

· high level of social differentiation: types of activities, territory and space;

· sociocultural heterogeneity;

· high level of sociocultural mobility;

· high level of sociocultural dynamics;

· high level of variability and alternativeness of consciousness and behavior;

· intensity of sociospatial mobility - interaction with a large number of different social groups;

· wide possibilities for choosing behavior models;

· high level of innovative activity;

· information richness of the urban environment (territories and space);

· personal localization of city life; personal choice of reasons and strategies for behavior.

The first systematic description of the urban lifestyle and its influence on the consciousness and behavior of a city dweller was undertaken by L. Wirth in Urbanism as a Way of Life (1938). A number of his ideas have now undergone significant adjustments, but his systematic methodology and breadth of review of urban phenomena are still instructive. Its main provisions can be presented in the form of a diagram:

L. Wirth's concept was developed in the works S. Milgram. He believed that the characteristic features of urban life, which Wirth, and even earlier Simmel, identified, could not fully explain the behavior of townspeople. Large numbers, density, heterogeneity and abundance of contacts are not direct factors of behavior. These quantitative characteristics of urban life are refracted by individual consciousness and experience. In relation to the individual, this is external information. What is needed is an idea that connects individual experiences with the characteristics of urban life. One way of such a connection, according to Milgram, is given by the concept "overload". We can say that the observed behavior of a city dweller in a wide range of situations is largely determined by the processes of adaptation to overload. He develops this concept in the form of the following judgments:

· Citizens tend to neglect information that is not a priority.

· During certain social operations, responsibilities are redistributed so that an overloaded system can shift part of the load to the second participant in the interaction.

· The information protection system for citizens blocks access to information at the very entrance. Social means of protection and selection are placed between the individual and information coming from the external environment. Special organizations are created to receive incoming information that would otherwise overwhelm the individual. The mediation of organizations between the individual and the social world, which is characteristic of the entire modern society and is especially pronounced in large cities, also has its negative side. It deprives the individual of a sense of direct contact and spontaneous integration with the life around him. It simultaneously protects and alienates the individual from his social environment.

Overload typically distorts daily life on multiple levels, affecting role performance, the evolution of social norms, cognitive functioning, and the nature of social responsibility.

Differences in the behavior of residents of a big city and a small town are:

· Differences in role order: the tendency of the inhabitants of a metropolis to enter into strictly segmented, functional relationships with each other.

· The evolution of urban norms that differ from the traditional provincial way of life: indifference, impersonality, alienation of metropolis residents.

· Adaptation of a city dweller’s cognitive abilities: his tendency is not to recognize the people he sees every day; sorting sensory impulses; satiety, a tendency to perversion and eccentricity; selectivity in responding to human requests.

· Limited moral and social involvement of individuals in his life. Limitation of such involvement takes a variety of forms, from a refusal to show concern for the needs of another individual (even if that person is in dire need of help) to an unwillingness to provide a favor or refusal to show simple politeness (reluctance to give up a seat to a woman or failure to apologize when a passerby collides). The extreme case of adaptation to an overloaded social environment is complete disregard for the needs, interests and demands of those people whom a person does not consider directly related to the satisfaction of his personal needs.

· Lack of social responsibility in a big city. In the city, the need for assistance arises so often that non-participation becomes the norm. The lower level of willingness to help among residents of a large city seems to be, to some extent, explained by the awareness of the dangers associated with life.

In big cities, traditional rules of politeness are not simply being violated; rather, new norms are being formed that dictate non-interference, the desire to remain on the sidelines. Anonymity can be thought of as a continuum with complete anonymity at one end and intimate familiarity at the other end, and it is possible that quantifying the exact degrees of anonymity in cities and towns will help explain important differences between the quality of life in them. For example, in conditions of close acquaintance, a feeling of security appears and friendly relationships are formed, but these conditions can also create an oppressive atmosphere, since the person is constantly being watched by people who know him. Conversely, in conditions of complete anonymity, a person is freed from formal social ties, but he may also experience feelings of alienation and isolation from people.

Milgram's final conclusion is as follows: “I believe that the behavioral differences between the inhabitants of large and small cities are due more to the reactions of similar people to very different living conditions, and not to any specific personal characteristics of the inhabitants of metropolises or provincial towns. A big city is a situation to which a person is forced to adapt.”

Lifestyle is a general sociological category used to characterize: 1) a set of specific forms of human life in all spheres of social life, developing into a qualitatively defined, ordered way of life; 2) a set of social conditions and ways of realizing people’s needs. This concept reflects the idea of determining people’s behavior by the features of their environment: from its geographical to mental characteristics.

Essential characteristics of urban lifestyle:

1) high level of social differentiation: types of activities, territory and space; 2) sociocultural heterogeneity; 3) high level of sociocultural mobility; high level of sociocultural dynamics; 4) high level of variability and alternativeness of consciousness and behavior; 5) intensity of sociospatial mobility - interaction with a large number of different social groups; 6) wide possibilities for choosing behavior models; 7) high level of innovative activity; 8) information richness of the urban environment (territories and space); 9) personal localization of city life, personal choice of grounds and strategies of behavior.

The first systematic description of the urban way of life and its influence on the consciousness and behavior of a city dweller was undertaken by L. Wirth in his work “Urbanism as a way of life” (1938). A number of his ideas have now undergone significant adjustments, but his systematic methodology and breadth of review of urban phenomena are still instructive. Its main provisions can be presented in the form of a diagram:

L. Wirth's concept was developed in the works of S. Milgram. He believed that the characteristic features of city life, which Wirth, and even earlier Simmel, identified, could not fully explain the behavior of city residents. Large numbers, density, heterogeneity and abundance of contacts are not direct factors of behavior. These quantitative characteristics of urban life are refracted by individual consciousness and experience. In relation to the individual, this is external information. What is needed is an idea that connects individual experiences with the characteristics of urban life. One way of such a connection, according to Milgram, is given by the concept "overload". We can say that the observed behavior of a city dweller in a wide range of situations is largely determined by the processes of adaptation to overload. He develops this concept in the form of the following judgments:

1.City residents tend to neglect information that is not a priority.

2. During certain social operations, responsibilities are redistributed so that an overloaded system can shift part of the load to the second participant in the interaction.

3.The information protection system for citizens blocks access to information at the very entrance. Social means of protection and selection are placed between the individual and information coming from the external environment. Special organizations are created to receive incoming information that would otherwise overwhelm the individual. The mediation of organizations between the individual and the social world, which is characteristic of the entire modern society and is especially pronounced in large cities, also has its negative side. It deprives the individual of a sense of direct contact and spontaneous integration with the life around him. It simultaneously protects and alienates the individual from his social environment.

Differences in the behavior of residents of a big city and a small town are, firstly, differences in role order: the tendency of the inhabitants of a metropolis to enter into strictly segmented, functional relationships with each other.

Secondly, the evolution of urban norms, which are at odds with the traditional provincial way of life: indifference, impersonality, alienation of the inhabitants of the metropolis.

Thirdly, the adaptation of a city dweller’s cognitive abilities: his ability to not recognize the people he sees every day; sorting sensory impulses; satiety, a tendency to perversion and eccentricity; selectivity in responding to human requests.

The limited moral and social involvement of individuals in his life. Limitation of such involvement takes a variety of forms, from a refusal to show concern for the needs of another individual (even if that person is in dire need of help) to an unwillingness to provide a favor or refusal to show simple politeness (reluctance to give up a seat to a woman or failure to apologize when a passerby collides). The extreme case of adaptation to an overloaded social environment is complete disregard for the needs, interests and demands of those people whom a person does not consider directly related to the satisfaction of his personal needs.

Fourthly, there is a lack of social responsibility in a big city. In the city, the need for assistance arises so often that non-participation becomes the norm. The lower level of willingness to help among residents of a large city seems to be, to some extent, explained by the awareness of the dangers associated with life.

Most people are children of a metropolis, and to understand whether this is good or bad, you need to understand what life in a big city is.

Even at the dawn of capitalism, many people flocked to big cities to earn money. This was especially true in winter for peasants, since agricultural work came to a standstill during this time. Some, having tasted such a life, subsequently became city residents.

What are the advantages of cities?

Most often, in big cities, people are attracted by several things:

the opportunity to find a well-paid job;
obtaining education (higher and vocational secondary);
opportunity for professional development and growth;
developed infrastructure with theaters and museums, transport and catering, libraries and stadiums, hospitals and clinics;
availability of conditions for own implementation;
the opportunity to organize and develop your own business.

As you can see, there are plenty of advantages. Moreover, they are something that villages and small towns have never even dreamed of.

But, as you know in life, for all good things you have to pay, and the pros are usually followed by the cons, just as a black streak follows a white one. And city life is no exception to this.

Disadvantages of living in a big city

So what do you have to pay for living in the city? Let's try to list what a city dweller constantly faces:

environmental problems in which all the “charms” of life are concentrated - polluted air, saturated with exhaust gases and industrial emissions into the atmosphere. Factories and gas stations, nuclear power plants and industrial waste, landfills and dirt on the streets;
lack of quality products, eating dry food, on the run and in fast foods;
significant psychological stress, causing a feeling of chronic fatigue or prolonged depression. Headaches associated with lack of sleep are much less common among rural residents;
a constant lack of free time caused by the high pace of life and the time it takes to travel to work;
high cost of living associated with high prices for housing, food, goods and services;
radiomagnetic waves also do not bypass the human body, having a harmful effect on it;
cities gradually turned into sources of noise and not very pleasant odors;
the presence of criminals, beggars and homeless people;
high crowding of people contributes to the emergence and rapid spread of all kinds of infections and epidemics.

As you can see, the number of pros and cons of living in a big city is far from equal.

There are many more disadvantages than advantages, but people continue to be attracted to megacities.

Maybe this is because the pros are more obvious than the cons?

Or do they simply try not to think about the disadvantages once again when choosing where to live?

When wanting to decide on a place of residence, it is apparently still worth carefully weighing all the advantages and disadvantages of large cities. It is possible that it makes sense to settle in smaller and quieter ones?

If your work is connected to a large city, then it makes sense to decide to arrange your life in the suburbs. Or choose a larger city that is safer and cleaner from an environmental point of view.

The most difficult thing can be to understand what is most suitable in your particular case. Maybe it makes sense to drop everything and leave the metropolis, moving to a small one in a timely manner?

Moreover, everything always has its own price, and the cost of living in a big city may accidentally turn out to be too high for a person and you should not forget about it.