Quote:
Originally Posted by isaidso
Population decline outside of metropolitan areas is a phenomenon throughout the developed world. The factors may differ slightly from country to country but the emptying out of rural areas has been going on for a while. Young people leave after high school leaving these places with mostly middle aged and older.
As these cohorts start dying off population decline will be far more severe because there's practically no one of child bearing age to offset that. I suppose some urbanites will buy summer homes and/or retire in these places as money tied up in real estate will go a lot further in these depressed places.
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Before Covid-19 and the possible new dynamics it introduced, I draw a parallel between the United States and Brazil concerning urban growth.
The United States had seen its suburbs to skyrocket while big urban centres decline. This pattern changed a bit in the past 15 years, with a new interest on urban life while suburbs start to see a much more modest growth.
Brazil is different, we don't have proper suburbs here. On the other hand, we see a similar phenomenon, with some one-two decade delay. The biggest metro areas grew incredibly fast between 1950-1991, while they slowed down from the 1990's. Then the middle-sized urban areas became very attractive, with vibrant economies and attract people that otherwise head straight to the state capitals. And I believe in the next decade the mid-sized will lose steam and the major urban areas, specially São Paulo, will benefit.