[pantalaimon]

That's odd because it it's pretty much the polar opposite of what I've experienced.

Everyone wants to move to the big cities, especially Berlin, as they provide culture and a sense of freedom. You are able to meet like-minded people and are able to experience culture and infrastructure that simply does not exist in rural areas.

This of course makes makes the situation for the villages worse as many young people move away. Who's left are old people and those who are not qualified to find work or education elsewhere.

The population decline in those regions also means a decline in infrastructure, economy and cultural events, which makes those regions even more unattractive, perpetuating the cycle.

There is a slight trend of dropouts creating alternative living communities in those areas as abandoned houses & property can be had for very cheap. But their isolated nature means that often they will not last as their inhabitants move back to the city were their original peer group is.

[tomohawk]

The problem with cities is that they have really bad failure modes. Consider Baltimore. The city has been run by a single political party for decades, and run right into the ground. Notice the trend in these population stats:

https://www.biggestuscities.com/city/baltimore-maryland

This is a city right next to DC, in an essentially recession proof area with lots of jobs.

I've known a number of people who were big proponents of living in cities until either (a) they were robbed, or (b) they had kids and realized there was no decent school there, and (c) they had no chance of impacting the government in any way to affect change. They all ended up moving to the burbs.

[jakecopp]

Are robberies less common in the suburbs?

Are schools in the suburbs better than those in the city?

Why is it easier to affect government in suburbs?

I'm not sure if you're discussing Baltimore in particular or if you are making these points generally. I'm not sure on robberies, but I live in Sydney and I don't think there is a big gap between school quality and government participation in suburbs vs cities.

[matt-attack]

My experience has been yes to all three of those. I’ve lived for decades in both Orange County (suburbs) and Los Angeles (city).

[toper-centage]

Young people want to go to Berlin but people with money want to settle away from it.

[brightball]

And IMO that's also a product of rent freezing.

Without rent freezing, rents continue to increase substantially enough that investors either build more housing in/near the urban centers to meet demand OR the price shifts high enough to make the decisions to live in rural areas much more appealing.