Is the urban exodus real – and worrying?

On February 21, a study prepared by the Metrópoli Institute and promoted by the ACM itself, the Association of Rural Initiatives of Catalonia (ARCA), and the Barcelona Metropolitan Strategic Plan (PEMB), was presented at the headquarters of the Catalan Association of Municipalities (ACM). The study uses data from several surveys to identify the volume and motivations of people living in large Catalan cities who move to smaller cities, or even to rural areas.

The results of the study have had a significant impact and have generated both headlines in the media and conversations on social networks, mainly highlighting the fact that some 70,000 people plan to leave the large cities of the Barcelona metropolitan region in the next five years to live in semi-dense or rural areas. The main reasons for this decision are to achieve an improvement in housing and/or the residential environment and the fact of forming a household or other family reasons (such as moving closer to dependent relatives to facilitate their care).

The study shows how these figures are similar to those existing before the 2008 financial crisis, when housing supply grew mainly in more peri-urban environments with large developments and many facilities for acquisition (a phenomenon that Jorge Dioni very accurately portrays at a Spanish level in his book La España de las piscinas). The impact of the crisis, which had intense effects on the real estate sector, led to a drop in the urban-rural transfer that began to recover from 2015 and reached its peak in 2020 due to the exceptional circumstances of the pandemic, slightly receding from the following year, until returning to pre-crisis figures.

First of all, it should be noted that this is not a phenomenon that exclusively affects Barcelona, but rather a generalized trend worldwide. In the case of Europe, studies show how nine out of ten large metropolitan areas on the continent lost population as a result of the pandemic, but urban growth rates have subsequently been recovering. The same is true in the large cities of the United States.

Delving into the survey, however, another relevant fact is observed, and that is that around 250,000 people would follow this same trend of leaving the large urban agglomeration if they could choose.

Given that media impact has essentially focused on the first of the cited figures, we will focus more here on this second data point.

Firstly, it must be taken into account that if we are talking about the large cities of the metropolitan region, what we at PEMB call the "city of 5 million", these 250,000 people would represent between 5% and 6% of its total population. It is important to note, however, that within the region itself there are also some small municipalities that, in fact, tend to be the main recipients of these flows. A percentage, in any case, which, considering that we are talking about a hundred municipalities and a territory close to 3,000 km² (the city of Barcelona occupies 100 km², for comparison), does not seem likely to cause any demographic collapse in our cities.

On the other hand, from the perspective of the small cities and rural areas that would be recipients, the impact could indeed be significant, especially if certain circumstances arose that favored any of these territories in particular (a significant economic investment generating jobs, for example).

According to data from the preparatory work for the law that will define the Statute of the Rural Municipality, which is currently undergoing parliamentary procedures, just over 300,000 people currently live in rural municipalities in Catalonia, although it should be noted that in this case, rural municipalities are considered those with fewer than 2,000 inhabitants, while in the Metrópoli Institute study, more focused on population density, the consideration of semi-dense or rural area includes municipalities of greater population size. In any case, it is evident that the impact remains very relevant. We do not believe that we can speak of repopulation, but undoubtedly of what could be a significant revitalization of certain areas of the Catalan territory.

Secondly, we are talking about a volume of people who would leave the city "if they could choose." What would be, in this sense, the factors that prevent this choice? It must be considered that the main one is job opportunities, which would involve the localization of more comparable jobs in typology and conditions (salary, but not only) in territories far from large cities.

It is true that the emergence of teleworking makes this need more flexible, given that the person who leaves the city for the rural world can take their own job with them. As we know, however, teleworking is not applicable to all jobs, nor is it accepted in all companies, nor do all people feel comfortable with it. But even if all these factors played in favor of the person who would move, a second fundamental obstacle would have to be overcome: housing availability.

Finding a home in a rural municipality is not easy at all. To a housing stock that is reduced by definition and with characteristics that often do not fit the needs of demand (due to size, location, etc.), we must add the high degree of generalized aging of the existing stock and, therefore, the need for investments for its conditioning. It also often happens that there is resistance from property owners to put homes on the market, whether for sale or rent. One of the factors highlighted in the colloquium after the presentation of the study is the feeling of breaking ties with the town that results from no longer having the option of going to spend a few days, even if circumstantially, due to having rented the family home.

In this sense, among the data contained in the study, we find that economic reasons related to housing costs have gone from being the main reason for changing residence in 5.7% of cases in 1995 to 24% in 2022, with a special impact on those living in large cities. There is, therefore, the paradox that people who are expelled from their homes by residential market conditions in the heart of the metropolis also face great difficulties in obtaining one in the market of semi-dense and rural areas.

The third major conditioning factor is mobility. Among all the services and facilities necessary for daily life, the only one that receives a clearly negative evaluation according to the surveys analyzed is public transport, and it deserves this evaluation only for people living in these semi-dense and rural areas. The lack of public transport alternatives thus represents the main disadvantage when deciding where to live, since a good service in this regard expands residential and work options by making everything more accessible.

In this area, there are several initiatives – supported in many cases by the features offered by artificial intelligence – aimed at making on-demand transport possible to serve where regular lines cannot reach. An incipient improvement process that will always be conditioned by the law of large numbers (those of potential users and those of profitability).

In short, as one of the study's headlines states, migrations from urban to rural areas are a minority, but growing, phenomenon. However, if we read it in reverse (growing, but still minority), perhaps we can make a more refined reading. In this way, with current figures and trends, it does not seem that we should expect major changes in the distribution of the population in the territory.

Now, many times, as a consequence of the pandemic, we have been asked at PEMB if a rural exodus will really occur in Barcelona and its surroundings or not, and now, following this study, we are asked if it is good or bad for this phenomenon to grow or if it is a problem if it starts to be less minority. Our answer is always the same: the question we must ask ourselves is whether or not we want this to happen and for what purpose, with what vision for the country. Because we are convinced that public policies can articulate the necessary incentives to achieve greater territorial balance, which, at the same time, we also consider essential for both the urban and rural worlds to advance in improving the quality of life of the people who live in them and in greater care for the environment. If we do not do it this way, it will simply be the market that decides what will happen, and we already know that the market alone does not always play in favor of issues such as territorial balance, quality of life, or care for the environment.