The lights are what we call our home. The noise soothes us to sleep.
City residents may be familiar with information about how unhealthy urban living is. Too much noise, air pollution, people yelling at each other constantly, smelly roads, cramped living spaces, concrete jungle. Many residents have even bought lands in rural areas, reserved for a calm retirement.
But, how many of them actually move out to live in the village, or even suburbs?
Even when media are boasting about how serene life would be in the village, city dwellers are still reluctant to move to a less busy area. Primarily, this is due to familiarity.
Rushing, multitasking, high temper.
For most of us who are raised in big cities, the bustling life is what we are used to. Despite so many loathsome factors about living in the city, we must admit that we are too attached to life in the city. We navigate the complicated roads with the flip of a hand, feeling little triumphs after finding little gems like a delicious restaurant in a narrow alley, and having easy access to everything.
We are so used to the constantly flickering lights that seeps through our window at night and the rumbling noise of car honks that we find ‘serenity’ in these things. Often times, when our surroundings became too silent, we grew somewhat anxious. We are just comfortable with familiarity and that’s absolutely okay.
However, cities are exploiting its rural areas, because they need so much energy to power its metropolitan livelihood. Their population keeps growing with more residents unwilling to move out of the city (as said above), while more people from rural areas fly to the city in a hope for a ‘better living’. Thus, the demand for resources will get higher and more pressing for rural areas–who has access to natural resources.
This condition not only widens the welfare gap between cities and rural areas (or its surrounding regions), it also makes cities unsustainable. They depend so much on ‘imported’ resources from other areas, while they are unable to provide for themselves.
Cities need to have a more sustainable self-reliance. If reshaping the whole city takes time, we should start with ourselves. We, as city residents, need to look at our own ‘footprints’ and alter our lifestyles towards sustainability.