The small city

Most of us think that India is divided in two parts, rural and urban, but it is much more complex than that. There are various levels between a village and a city. A city is generally which provides it's residents with all the facilities needed to lead a desired life. These facilities are not only infrastructural or tangible provisions but are also supporting measures like job opportunities, healthcare facilities, schooling options for kids, better recreational options, etc. It is very easy for a big city guy to ignore this things but when a village or small city friend visits him, these are the things that light up his eyes. 

Now, what is a small city? What I feel about small cities is, they are like a student who is average in studies. He is loaded with expectations of getting into the topper's group and at the same time has the pressure of sliding into the lower class. I know the comparison is a little unorthodox but for an average student like me, it is perfect. Getting ahead with the small city, it can be said as an incomplete, neglected, unattended city. Only the people who are born in a small city want to live there and sometimes even they don't want to. They want to move to the big city for better education or job or just the lifestyle. I had to move to a big city because of my job. But like every other guy even if I left my job, I may not move back. 

Why we don't want to live in a small city? The attrition rate of a small city in India is very high. Every one talks about villagers moving to the city but I think we face a more grave danger. The rate at which the youth of this country are fleeing the small cities is daunting. But, somehow nobody is realising it right now. One of the major reasons for this shift is IT industry jobs. IT industry in India has slowly grown to be the major employer. IT companies visit small cities in search for talent and provide them employment in big cities, from where the employee never return back. It's a vicious cycle. Why people are moving away from small cities? because they don't provide jobs. Why there are no jobs in small cities, because they don't have the talent pool or people don't want to work in small cities. Why there is lack of talent pool in small cities? because the talent pool wants to move to the big city. See, we are where we began. 

This shift is not only hampering the small cities but even the big cities. As the earning population of big cities has increased drastically, so is the demand. Supply being the same there is a gradual rise in prises. Take real estate, cities where there are IT sectors, real estate has boomed near office areas, causing expansions of city limits and sudden rise in prises of areas which were earlier small villages. The big cities are also reaching their accommodation limits which in turn is creating problems for administration of such cities. Problems like drinking water deficiency, pollution, traffic, etc. Yes, the revenue of these cities has gone up but it is spent in solving these problems only. 

There are some people who cannot leave the small city due to some or the other reason. So how these people survive in unemployment? They live on the income of other people i.e secondary income, by opening small service businesses like Pan Shop, Auto Rickshaw, Tea stalls, etc. One thing that you will see most in small cities is the Pan shops, which tends people to inculcate bad habits, which in turn makes the city unhygienic and filthy. These kind of businesses don't contribute to the income or revenue of the city and even have their side effects. But generally people don't get into such kind of things by choice. They are forced by their unemployment.

So how a small city can become a big city? One very general answer is development. But how? It can be done in two ways, one by the authorities and second by the citizens. I won't comment on what authorities should do for development. What citizens can do for the development of the city? Firstly, we can invest in our city. Investment doesn't mean purchasing a land or something, but actually contributing to the revenue of the city. Take up a job in the small city rather than moving to the big city. This is the minimum one can do to contribute. Job in a small city have it's advantages too. Second thing is Startups. The trend that we are currently experiencing is that startups are setting up in big cities even though the idea is of a guy from a small city. A small thing like starting your idea in a small city contributes a lot to the city's growth. Small city provide the best environment for startups. There are many things that can be done, we just need to think and support it. Expecting a overnight change is foolishness, but we need to start somewhere. 

We should look at the bigger picture. This concept might not have a big effect for a few years but in a decade or two it will. The thought is that there should be uniformity among cities to maintain the balance of people, resources, nature and everything. Hope every small city and village in the country becomes a big city some day.   

    

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