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Falling demographic is one issue, but the problem here is also due to urbanization[0]. My wife's village in Spain has a population between 50-100 during winter
by gutnor 11y ago
Falling demographic is one issue, but the problem here is also due to urbanization[0]. My wife's village in Spain has a population between 50-100 during winter time and jump to over 1000 in summer time where families are back for holiday. Those people are not tourist, they are the sons, and grand-sons of the village.
Plenty of people still, just not enough jobs to keep them around all year round.
[0] Edit: Another point worth noting - real estate in the villages, even live one is extremely cheap compared to Spanish cities. You will find large houses with patio, and everything for around 10K EUR. So 10K for a whole village is not as extreme as one may think. You will still need at least 100K for a very shitty 2 bed in an average area of Madrid.
- riffraff 11y agothe same is true in a bunch of places in Italy. And once a small town goes below some threshold, it becomes much harder to live there because of the lack of job options (e.g. in a big city you can more easily work as a psychologist, office clerk or barmaid; in a town of 300 people, of which 80 are in retirement, it's a lot less likely). Also, many old manual jobs are shunned by youngsters, or have been mechanized/automated, so doing "what your grandpa did in the old village", is not generally a realistic option.