People believe in the fairytale of cosy,close-knit communities the future can’t be all about big citiesSwitzerland needs you. Or more precisely, the tiny Alpine community of Albinen needs you, and badly enough that its offering £19000 a head to anyone prepared to stride into town and stay there. Its chief attraction is said to be lots of lovely fresh air; and if that sounds suspiciously like admitting it doesn’t gain all that many attractions,therein perhaps lies the problem. Young people are leaving Albinen, shrinking its population to that of a modest hamlet, or not coming back. And that’s a problem not confined to Switzerland.
Small towns and villages all over Britain,from the sleepy shires to post-industrial towns, are now struggling to sustain their footing in a world where youth, or energy and prosperity are draining absent to the city. A million young people gain moved out of small communities over the past 30 years,according to the new thinktank Centre for Towns, launched this week by the election analyst Ian Warren with the assist of Labour MP Lisa Nandy to focus minds on places that all too easily slip between the cracks of public debate; the Merthyr Tydfils and the Skegnesses, and the Peterboroughs and the Swindons,and all the places that aren’t really rural or urban but awkwardly in between.
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Source: guardian.co.uk