📘 Part 3: Living in a city

This episode's vocabulary

To mingle (verb) - to move around and talk to other people at a social event.

Novelty (noun) - the quality of being new and unusual.

Rural (adj.) - in, of, or like the countryside.

Pull (noun) - something that attracts people.

Urban (adj.) - of or in a city or town.

Tourist trap (noun) - a crowded place that provides entertainment and things to buy for tourists, often at high prices.

Kitschy (adj.) - connected with art, decorative objects, or design considered by many people to be ugly, without style, or false, but enjoyed by other people, often because they are funny.

Recruit (verb) - to persuade someone to work for a company or become a new member of an organization, especially the army.

Aspiration (noun) - something that you hope to achieve.

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Questions and Answers

M: Rory, why do some young people like to live in cities?

R: Well, I would imagine the greater variety of just about everything. You have more choice and resources, places to live, ways to live, people to mingle with, young people tend to be greater fans of novelty compared to older people who are more set in their ways. So it's easy to see what would draw them to such places.

M: Do most older adults live in the city or in the country?

R: Well, I suppose it depends on individual people, to be honest. So rural areas tend to be quieter, and until perhaps they're more suitable for older people with a more relaxed pace, or a preference for a more relaxed pace. As for cities, I mean, it's possible that some older people are just creatures of habit, and they grew up there. So they feel more comfortable because they don't really know anything else. I think it depends on the older person.

M: Is it good for the elderly to live in cities?

R: Assuming they have the infrastructure to cater to them and are comfortable there, it's hard to imagine why they wouldn't. I mean, doesn't everybody want to live in such circumstances? It's possible to make the same argument for rural areas, though.

M: Would you agree that living in the country is healthier for the elderly?

R: I can see why people would say that, but it could also be healthier to live in a city. I mean, if you think about a massive city, like Moscow, for example, there are parks, which are just as open and free as the countryside. So I think really the context, it depends so much on that.

M: Do you think young people who live in the country want to move to a city?

R: You would have to ask them. I'm not an expert, but if I were to guess I'd say there's a definite pull from the city, in terms of the novelty I mentioned before, and a push in terms of the lack of novelty and perhaps a lack of jobs in the countryside. But that's just a guess though.

M: But do you think in the future, more people, more young people will move to cities?

R: Well, there's is this, or at least there was this trend of people moving to urban spaces. But I wonder with the pandemic if that started to reverse or even, well, it's evened out by now.

M: Do you think well developed tourism will have negative effects on local people and communities?

R: It's understandable why many people would think this. Especially since turning places into tourist traps tends to make things a bit, I don't know kitschy. Though we're well aware of that now. And we're also aware of ways to fight against it. Tourists themselves can be recruited to support local cultures and insulate them from the worst effects of this kind of trend. I would say there are more positives than negatives by quite a long way.

M: What advantages can tourists bring to a city?

R: Well, obviously money, but also an aspiration to provide better and better services, greater variety in terms of services, and it could bring awareness of certain issues which societies face. That's one of the benefits to countries like Haiti, when people go there, people like tourists, they see people, their local people, and they want to help them. I still have a dream of running a teacher training course there. So that is one an example of a benefit that could be provided.

M: Do you think that in the future cities will change?

R: Well, yes, because everything will be different in the future, everything changes with time, so they'll probably get bigger and hopefully the infrastructure will improve to meet the increased demand of having a larger population as well. But that's only if the previous trend I mentioned continues. I have no idea, I'm not an expert.

M: Okay, thank you very much, Rory! The city Rory.

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