The Urban Escape

 

Diagrams

There is an approach how to analyze this process:

There are simple questions about the offered place with two options yes/no

which are taken in an account as an option for a target place.

If the place reaches the most important quality, there is a next question.

If the place doesn’t reach the important quality it is excluded from the process and the new place is coming into the game until the last place which goes through the whole process with all the answers like “yes” and this is the one which is chosen for a personal visit in the first iteration .

What are the questions?

Questions are dependent on the origins .. it means what is not liked at the original place will be probably the big drive for desires of the opposite.

The first questions are based on push factors.

Frequent yes/no questions

The order of the questions which are used as rules for decision creates the patterns

These questions are based on push factors and pull factors which are important for this specific family or couple or single

This is mostly about desired qualities

Abour landscape and environment:

No pollution, no noise

No industrial object close

Gardens or open landscape

Flat or hilly

About people:

Social environment (high prices prevention against strangers)

About infrastructure:

Transportation, Shops, schools

I take items from the real estate evaluation standards

Push factors (roots) are mainly:

PUSH FACTORS  what is not liked?

Not enough space

In the flat (or house)

Outside (narrow streets)

Many people everywhere

Overcrowded city or just rush

Space:

1 – small room in their “dwelling unit” – flat,house

The question is : Is it the place big enough? (outside, inside)

1 a) is the space worthy to the money which we are supposed to pay?

(simple counting more space in the house vs. less space in the city-flat the same money)

2 – is it the desired locality? (is it about landscape or about a county?)

People:

feeling overcrowded outside their home

(multidimensional places).. there are a lot of people everywhere but it just emphasises the feeling of lonelinness … we meet just people with the same group and all the people around are at the same place in the same moment but they aren’t a part of our “tribe” so we subsconsciously feel them as a danger

if we live at the smaller place as a village, we talk to everyone we must have a talk or just an interaction and solve at the moment if this person is included in “club or not”

It means the level of insecurity about the people around me is way lower. We meet people they aren’t friendly even in the village but we know it. But when we are in the city we have no idea about many of them how should we feel about them. It means we have the feeling of alienation.

Environmental reasons:

They don’t check interactive maps about environment in Prague or anywhere else, they just feel the city as noisy or polluted. And they expect the better quality of environment in the countryside automatically. They usually don’t check the maps or applications which research this.

1. Noise

It is clearly cars. (I would like to ask someone who moved close to weir which is noisy as well, if they take it in their account)

2. Pollution

It is something which is not visible and they don’t check the real situation at the environmental portals. They just suppose that some areas are not polluted and some of them are. It is quite old prejudice which is connected with some localities and people still believe in it in spite of the reality has changed a lot. This is the reason why in CR is quite common prejudice about the polluted north and unpolluted South. The situtation in the public meaning about the localities is changing very slowly slower than the real situation

3. Rush

I am hesitating if this concept is about environment but people mention it quite often and they aren’t able explain exactly what they mean. It is just the feeling than all the people around you are in rush and you are impcatde by it in your mood.

This is quite common summary of main reasons why people don’t like living in the city and want to move. . They can be seen as roots of the decision to move. Let’s call them roots of our tree of decision.

Tree of Decision

The decision to leave a city and find a new place for living has basically

two layers: ROOTS + (TRUNK + BRANCHES+LEAVES) the upper part of the plant

The first one is the root question:

What are the reasons for leaving.

What is the main reason with the biggest importance.

Roots = push factors

The second is:

What are they looking at the new place for.

Branches = pull factors

If we think about the process of the decision we can see it as a tree. The first is like a part of the tree under the ground which means roots and the second are branches.

We can hardly find two identical trees but we can find something similar with resemblance.

It means that every family can pass through a different process of making decision. It means that the importance for some questions in this process is essential for the same group of people but the step after could be with the different priorities. we can expect the similar patterns which means that the first and the second step is the same or maybe the third, just the details have different priority.

Pull factors ( branches) are two types:

desires and limits

DESIRES:

^{PULL FACTORS} – what is liked?

Nature

Open landscape

Rivers, mountains…etc.

Social environment

Creating community

Staying alone

The possibility of ownership

Is often portrayed as an economic factor but it seems to be much more. People usually connect this opportunity as a strong feeling of home. They say they feel more rooted when they have their own property. Sometimes it is felt like a founder of a dynasty.

The other feeling is also having the place which is governed by them. They are the owners who has the power to adjust the place according to their imaginations whatever that means.

There might be more types of approach.

The first is more about self-actualization motives like to manifest one’s creativity with building a new house or a reconstruction the old one.

The other can be about being aligned, like make an order everywhere, build everything from the beginning, maybe the part of the whole process is the destruction of an old building and replacing all the plants in the garden.

These are two extreme positions of the line, but both of them appear in the sample. Both of them impact the public space in the area in a different way.

LIMITS:

^{PULL FACTORS} – limiting factors for choices?

All the desires have their limits. It is obviously not possible for everyone to afford everything what they desire. There is an interesting part of the decision making process how they create a balance between their desires and their limits. Which desires they are willing to sacrifice and which are essential. There is the key of distribution different types of people in different types of localities.

Money

What is wanted is too expensive

Distance

Transportation options

Local infrastructure

Availability of schools and social services

The first results of an empirical research

I have already did 12 unstructured interviews about 1-2 hours long in three localities.

These interviews were focused on their decision to choose the place where they actually live and their lifestyle before the move and after. Their values, hobbies and attitudes were also asked but mainly they talk what they felt that was the most important things which influenced their decisions.

I have found three basic groups of people they leave a city to countryside.

The first one is the majority of all I estimate 80% of all these migrants. They are people with a family in productive age.

Family thinking – children are powerful

The most common pattern (tree) is found in a standard family thinking

^{PUSH FACTORS} – no trigger, slowly surely

They usually take their final decision slowly, there was no trigger which push them for the quick action. They just felt increasing uncomfort from lack of space in the flat and some of them feel not enough green and space in the city. Nature or even garden was wanted and rush in the city was also mentioned.

PULL FACTORS

What is a real motivation for choosing the place?

There are no motivation created by parents. Everything is considered regarding to kids – ALMOST

They have only one the most important goal: how to arrange raising kids, so all the decisions are dependent on their imagination what is the best solution for this purpose.

Amenities of the place is only a “bonus” in the last part of the “diagram”

They don’t think about their personal self-development consciously. There can be found signs about this motivation but it is still very subtle.

^{Subtypes of Family thinking}

^{ALIGNED mode}

These people are usually high educated, financially well supported, focused on healthy food, healthy environment, often bring their children to private schools to the city everyday.

They decided to build a new house and they are very focused on gaining information from the “right” sources which are shared by their own social group.

RELAXED mode

These people sometimes decide to buy an old house and adjust it to their needs or they build a new one but they do a part of the work on their own.

They usually decide to send their children to the village school and they use a bus for commuting. They are very well financial situated as well. They have a car but they don’t use it daily.

How might look their decision patterns?

The first one is the place which doesn’t have all the troubles as the city:

polluted,noisy, alienated, overcrowded.

1. STEP – reaction to the roots

This is everthing what is wanted – what is driving

is to find a place which is spacy – the importance of the house

it should be a house or just a flat?

The important role of the landscape outside, if it is open or if it is closed

The important role of ownership in the meaning having an opportunity to adjust the place.

find something closer to nature

2. STEP – limits

This is almost limitation what is impossible or not practical

1.distance of the city, infrastructure

The other question is the distance from the original city.

And this is changing a lot.

The communication technologies allow many people to work from their homes and they are less dependant on everyday commuting

n the other hand, they have children and they have to attend a school lessons but the truth is that they sometimes go to the local school and sometimes back to the city. It depends on the people who they are.

2. infrastructure

3. STEP – emotional things, feeling of the place, belonging to a group

FIRST RESULTS – FIRST MODELS

This is my basic model:

roots and this three levels of branches

This introduced pattern is expected the majority of counterurbanisation movements and we can label them as a “mainstream” for people with children and they are following the direction that living in the countryside is good for children.

These basic levels appear in the behaviour of standard families who are different just in the decision in the single steps. It means that some families see the distance until 50 km still usable and the other see the distance 30 too far. Or maybe some of them count on being dependent on a car and their children go to schools

If I tried to take a look at the motivation of these people there are allmost nothing about them in person but they take in count just the family interest and nothing about their own self development.They don’t think about their own needs and desires. Everything is driven by raising the kids.

Belonging to a group is not very often appeared in this group because this need is fulfilled by bein a family.

There is usually no “trigger” for the decision, but it just slowly ripens and when they find something what is in their rank of choices, they take it.

The first pattern of thinking is readable in case families with children or families with the prospect of having children in the future. They always thinking primarily about the place regarding to the children. So, this tree is about them and their single choices are dependant more on their perception what is better for their ability to take care about the family and raising children than about their own self development or self-realisation. They don’t think as much about belonging to a group of people because their tribe is a family. So, they don’t really seek for a specific social group.

Pre-Family thinking

The second type of pattern (decision tree) is the pre-family thinking

It is not that often because young people who don’t have a family, don’t move outside that often. They usually stay in the city until the child is on the way or born. So, this is the case with the “trigger”. There must be an occurrence which pushes them to move. And they always take in account the option having family in the future but their prospect is counting on the future family.

but they take it in account have very similar. They have no experience how it is like to have a family, so they don’t see how much it impacts their life. They think mostly about their career in the process of decision making. They think about achieving their goals in their professional life. Their tree is almost the same pattern as the previous group but they prefer different choices in the steps.

This type of people don’t usually think about moving to the countryside before the unusual situation appears. It can be money from relatives they want to support them with buying the house, or their contract is finishing and they decide to to the countryside because they see that there is more space an less money should be paid for it.

^TRIGGER

They are usually very focused on their work. All their choices are based on how to arrange their working environment in the best way.

Children are taken in account

They think about children but it is not the supreme topic for them. Their choice is almost not touched by this prospect.

Feeling of the place

They are also interested about the feeling of the place. They watch animals (birds, squirrels) and “mood of landscape”. They often do experiments and they stay overnight in a tent at the place before they buy it.

Single or couple thinking

The third type of pattern (decision tree) is the single thinking.

^{There is a group which includes singles and couples without an option having kids. They show very similar patterns in making decisions. They can be a couple of people they are too old for having children or homosexual men.}

These people are thinking about themselves more than the others. They are really focused on their self-development consciously. There is still difficult to speak about the pattern because there aren’t many. These people do not move to countryside often and if they do, they have a special individual story. They don’t need to look around to anyone so there are their needs first.

They are usually think about the self-actualization, fulfilling their dreams or meaning of life.

They aren’t interested in local infrastructure, or public transportation. They have usually an idea why they need the specific place which they took. It is always about creativity and the adjustment or creating the place as home.

^{The possibility about adjustment the place}

^{One motivation is common for all of my informators and it is the opportunity to create their own place. It is a b}ackground motivation for everyone. But the way how they manifest their creativity in this way is different.

They can manifest their creativity in the conscious way where they do all the changes slowly and softly without big interfere.

Or

The other approach is to manifest the powerful ownership. It is the way when they destruct everything old and create the new world from the foundation. It is also the type of creativity but it looks like suppressed need which bursts with this destruction. It looks like they need to decline their previous life and it feels like a symbolic new beginning.

There is also the feeling “being in charge” of the place which creates the feeling about ownership as well. They want to demonstrate the power of the place. A part of the whole game is also the same need to product their own space for their own group as Henri Lefébvre suggested in his famous book Production of Space (Lefébvre 1971). It was mentioned in conseqences with the social groups which claim their right to the public space and these social groups want to rule the space create their structures and overtake the control of the organisation of the space. This situation seems to be a sign that it is not only true for social group but also for single people or a family who have this need to take the space and govern it.

The approach to the space has also a strong impact on the environment or the public life in the area. The people who tend to preserve their close environment (an old house and old garden) they tend to own more space just because they want to prevent next changes in their neighborhood. (I would buy this land if I had money, because I don’t want anyone build there something ugly.. a supermarket )

The pyramid

If we look at this pyramind, we can say that the privileged migration is not driven by the first level of the pyramid by the money or the basic needs. WE can expect it when we say the word “priviledged” but the truth is that some of informators talk about safety. They really feel insecure in th city. But I need to think about this coincidence more. It doesn not look like a real thing.

The young people they are leaving they lives are full of self achievment or self esteem and the migration is always driven by their career, they think about the good accessibility for their jobs. And they take in account potentially children but they just think about them virtually, they can’t imagine the real situation. If they move somewhere, they are in a mood of thinking in the 4^th floor of Maslow’s pyramid

The majority of all informators are families with children as I said before. Their motivation is driven in the first and second level of the pyramid. But they are motivated not with their own needs but with expected needs of the family. It is like a step down in the pyramid. They aren’t motivated with belonging or love because they are already in the relationship and it creates kind of isolation against the rest of the world. They feel belonging with their partner and children.

And the very specific group of people are single people or couples who don’t have anyone to care of. They think about their own goals and their self-development or self-actualisation. They have their own individual trees which is difficult to put into the pattern. They have trigger which reveals them what they want to do and it is connected with the place where they are heading. Or they need to leave the city and earn the room for their activities which has being planned for a long time before.