What city people can learn from young people who’ve moved to the countryside.

How do you feel about living in a city versus what do you associate with living in the countryside? For years, I’ve been thinking a lot about how much longer it might take until people start fleeing cities. Paying rent has become such a widely discussed topic, so it would only make sense for people to just give up on it. Yet, of course, it seems crazy to just give up on the friends we’ve found and start from scratch all over again. And, it especially might seem crazy to you that I’m bringing up this topic, given it’s not too long since I myself exchanged Vienna for Berlin, one of the cities with the most rapidly rising rents.

Personally, I’m not planning to leave Berlin anytime soon. I fully acknowledge the move has bumped up my monthly fixed costs by €500, which has clearly also impacted my priorities and how I’m spending my time. I acknowledge it and feel fortunate for being able to live the life I do. Regardless of whether it means I’m now more conscious of money than I previously had to be. However, despite all that, the topic of moving to the countryside remains an interesting one.

When I came across the recently published book City Quitters, I didn’t hesitate getting it even for just a second. I was curious. I understood why people would move away, but as someone who loves living in the city, yet also someone who grew up in the countryside and hated it, I wanted to understand how people ‘actually’ made it work.

Over two hundred pages later, I believe to have found a shared pattern and what many of the people who are happier living in villages seem to have in common. It’s how they practice intention.

It’s obvious paying less rent gives people the necessary time to be intentional. They consciously create the environments they want to live in. They are the ones who make things happen. The ones who initiate. The ones who gather, craft, and make. They host book club potlucks, they organize regular food share gatherings, they teach themselves about the traits unique to their environment and pass on the knowledge to visitors, but also locals. By doing all these things, they build communities and with that, a sense of belonging.

By being the ones who create, who proactively think about how to make their environment better, they feel happie

In a city, there’s so much to choose from. Initiating gatherings, and especially doing so regularly, might feel like a constraint. Which is why not that many do. Planning to meet up with one busy friend often feels like a hassle already. Organizing a group that’s larger, and given everyone’s busy with their careers and their millions of other commitments, creating regularity and gathering people is quite the task. If someone dares to do that, one can’t do it and only care partially. Not if a gathering should be remembered as meaningful.

Since moving back to Berlin, I’ve been thinking a lot about gatherings and organizing activities. This email might have been an unfinished thought, yet one I wanted to share, given it’s what I’m thinking about a lot lately and especially because of the book project I’m currently working on. I know it’s early on a Wednesday morning, yet I’d love to leave you with the prompt to think about something you’d love to see happen in your community. Then take the first step to making it happen.