The coronavirus and the prospect of working from home for a long time led to a rush in Western countries to buy and rent homes in small towns. First and foremost, we are talking about the working-age population between the ages of 20 and 40.
In the U.S., Britain and Australia, the demand for relocation to small towns is breaking all records. At a minimum, people want to survive the ongoing coronavirus pandemic with fewer risks, and at a maximum – to change the life around them and get out of the usual circuit: home-transport-office.
The American Exodus
An equally striking trend is in the United States. There has already been a wave of the first “covid” migration, when between March and May 2020, about 450 thousand people temporarily left the 9 million-strong New York City (this data from the New York Times, based on the geolocation of cell phone users).
Brooklyn-based The Atlantic journalist Amanda Moule says in her article about the displacement of residents that on those spring days you could only see neighbors on the street packing up their belongings and delivery service couriers on the street.
American sociological company The Harris Poll in October presented a study from which it follows: one in three residents of the big city would like to move to less populated areas because of the coronavirus. The most ready to move – people in the age group from 18 to 34 years – just those of whom wrote the British writer Rosa Rankin-Gee.
Sociologists from The Harris Poll confirms her thoughts, and the data of British analysts: the opportunity to work remotely makes you think about a change of place, especially since living in nature is much better than in a high-rise building overlooking a busy road.
However, Americans surveyed would not want to go far from their place of work – and prefer to look for housing in the suburbs or within a radius of about 100 kilometers of New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and other major metropolitan areas.
Living in the middle of big cities is becoming less and less attractive to young Americans
New York Times gives the example of a house in East Orange (a suburb of New York with low-rise buildings). It was put up for sale in August 2020 for $285,000. It was viewed 97 times in three days, and 24 buyers said they were willing to pay immediately. In the end, it sold for 21% more than the asking price.
Time magazine compares the scale of the exodus from the cities to the times of the plague epidemic in the 16th century.
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