Preventing rural exodus is key and strategic
Carles Llorens
Secretary General of ORU Fogar
In Pitesti, Arges, Romania, during an ORU Fogar Bureau meeting, we are going to discuss Rural Development. We firmly believe that this is one of the keys to avoiding many of our future problems. The rural exodus is one of the most transformative demographic and social phenomena of the last two centuries. Essentially, it is the "great journey" of the population from the countryside to the cities, motivated by the search for a better life. However, in many cases, this movement does not bring improvement; instead, it leaves the countryside empty and disrupts the cities. For ORU Fogar, this concern is not new. For years, we have firmly defended the idea that the best way to avoid urban problems is, precisely, to prevent the rural exodus at its source.
The Myth of Urban Progress vs. the Countryside
For too long, the global debate has been hijacked by an exclusively urban vision. We saw this at the Habitat III summit in Quito in October 2016—nearly ten years ago now—when the concept of the "right to the city" became the main banner. This concept, under the guise of progress, nonetheless consolidates a hierarchy that values the city over the countryside, perpetuating a pejorative view that dates back to the Enlightenment. Certain so-called "progressive" currents have historically presented the city as the sole engine of advancement, contrasted against a countryside labeled as dark and retrograde. This dichotomy is not only harmful but profoundly false, and it has served to justify the systematic disparagement of the rural environment.
The Reality of the Urban Explosion
For millions of people, the city has been and remains a promise. Cities offer access to services that are limited in the countryside: specialized hospitals, universities, a vibrant cultural scene, and, above all, a greater diversity of employment. Thus, there is a "pull effect" and an ever-present perception that professional success and modernity occur exclusively on the asphalt. Often, however, the city is a false promise that worsens social differences, uproots individuals, and places migrants in unhealthy, marginal, and unsafe spaces. In these places, there are no hospitals, university access is impossible, culture is absent and unexpected, and the hoped-for employment is nowhere to be found.
It is important to recognize that the rural exodus is not just an echo of the Industrial Revolution; it is a very active process. In Latin America, 80% of the population already lives in cities, yet these continue to grow with people coming from the surrounding territories. In Argentina and Uruguay, more than 90% already live in cities. In Europe, while we are far from the rural depopulation seen in previous decades, we still see many young people leaving rural areas to study or work in cities and never returning. When the young population leaves, these areas become populated mostly by the elderly. This creates a vicious cycle where public services like schools and health centers close due to a lack of demand, which in turn pushes more people to leave. The highest rates of rural demographic decline in Europe are found in Bulgaria, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Romania itself, driven by a combination of external migration (to other EU countries) and internal migration (to their capitals). In Romania, the biggest problem lies in remote regions that constantly lose population due to a lack of competitive economic opportunities compared to large cities. There is also the problem of "Empty Spain"—vast territories with extremely low population density, severe aging, and a lack of basic services, creating another cycle of decline that is difficult to break.
Nothing, in any case, compares to what is happening today in Africa. There, the rural exodus is a unique phenomenon due to its speed and magnitude. While historically in Europe the exodus was a gradual transition, in a continent like Africa today, it is a chaotic explosion. Push factors, ranging from climate change to a lack of infrastructure, drive millions of people to seek refuge in megacities that collapse under the weight of a demand for which they were not planned. What looks like a quest for progress on paper, translates in practice into logistical crises, informal urbanism, and rampant inequality. The gap between business districts and marginal zones generates chronic social tensions that cities, on their own, cannot resolve.
This dizzying transfer of population towards African cities clashes head-on with an urban reality marked by precariousness and a shortage of basic infrastructure. The weight of informality is overwhelming: in metropolises like Lagos, Nigeria, it is estimated that more than 60% of the economy is informal. This forces millions of people to survive through street trade and unregulated services operating outside any legal protection. This precariousness is worsened by an unbridgeable service gap; demographic growth is so fast that the financial capacity of governments is insufficient to deploy sewage networks or electricity supply at the same pace. This leads to the proliferation of massive informal settlements, with the Kibera slum in Nairobi being the most representative example of this phenomenon.
Beyond being a final destination, the African metropolis often acts as a strategic "launchpad" for those planning a future abroad. For much of the youth migrating from rural areas, cities like Lagos, Dakar, or Nairobi function as a training ground and a place to accumulate resources where the acquisition of capital becomes a priority: unlike the subsistence economy predominant in the countryside, the city offers the possibility of generating the liquid cash necessary to pay for travel costs or manage visas. It is in this urban environment where access to key information networks materializes, allowing contact with migration agencies or relatives who have already completed the journey to Europe. Finally, this experience is driven by new personal aspirations where daily exposure to an urban and globalized lifestyle often raises individuals' expectations, reinforcing the determination to make the definitive leap out of the continent in search of broader horizons.
Centralism as a Driver of Abandonment
The attraction of cities is not only related to the economic concentration they generate. The rural exodus is largely fueled by political centralization that acts as an imbalancing magnet. When power, investment, and decision-making are concentrated in the capital, a drain of resources occurs that condemns the territory. This centralism creates a dangerous loop where the capital hoards infrastructure while the lack of financial and administrative autonomy in the regions scares away rural investment. To break this vicious cycle, we must move towards a polycentric state model based on effective decentralization, ensuring that living in the countryside is a viable option and not an act of heroism.
Towards a New Territorial Balance
Achieving territorial balance requires true administrative and functional decentralization, where regional governments have their own regulatory capacity to adapt laws to their reality. The State must guarantee by law an equality of services, where access to healthcare, education, and 5G connectivity is identical at any point in the territory. Furthermore, differentiated taxation is necessary to reward territorial resilience, along with institutional deconcentration that moves public bodies out of power centers. Decentralization is, above all, an exercise in democracy: if power is close to the people, solutions are more precise and adjusted to the reality of the land. It is time to recognize that the future of our nations depends on our capacity to provide life, resources and autonomy to our entire territory.
