Urbanization is accelerating as is the abandonment of the countryside, this post is a short article about my thoughts concerning local communities and urbanization. At this very moment, every month seven million of us human beings move to live their lives in the urban environment. Living in the middle of concrete, under high pressure sodium lamps, constantly exposed to exhaust gases and loud noise pollution has become new normal.  Modern health and diet history studies say that at the times before industrialization there were two main factors that significantly reduced people´s general health; urbanization and the beginning of cultivation.

Living in the city makes life easier for many people in many different ways but something is definitely lost in the way. We are losing our connection to something essential, something that we are still completely dependant on in many ways. Biologically this can expressed that hostility, anger and intolerance towards each other rise as always when the habitat becomes overpopulated and more competitive. Modern structures based on competition and eternal growth make it even worse. Our environment affects us in many ways all the time even though we are not aware of it. We are not genetically adapted to live in the city – for over 5000 thousand years, the majority of people lived in the villages where most institutions, ideas, customs and habits were developed. We used to live and work together, hunt in groups and equally share the catch. Survival based on teamwork and the faceless and impersonal city life that we live nowadays is quite the opposite.

Many times people are forced to move to live in the city and actually that might be some of the mankind´s biggest challenges in the future; how to socially, politically, psychologically, morally and ecologically adapt to city life where common meanings, values and goals hardly exist. The horrifying consequences of the last century´s population explosion can already be seen and these pictures taken from Hong Kong´s tiniest apartments show you the future of city living.

The countryside should be kept alive there where it´s possible because local communities based on personal contact between people are essential for preserving humanity and this is how all people are still provided opportunities to enjoy simple living and the recreating and calming effects of natural surroundings free of noise and light pollution.

I want to remind you that by voting with your wallet and supporting local small-scale business you help to ensure that the countryside is kept vibrant and its way of life still exists in the future!