Monday, July 19, 2021
Biggest move in Hanover
Every eighth person wants to leave the big city
The corona pandemic has increased the urge to move to the countryside or a small town: Many people in Germany have had enough of life in the big cities and want to leave them, shows a survey by Ifo and Immowelt. How strong the pressure to move varies significantly from city to city.
The experiences from the corona pandemic could drive many people out of the big German cities. More than every eighth inhabitant (12.9 percent) of the cities with more than half a million inhabitants want this, according to one Survey of the Munich Ifo Institute and the real estate portal Immowelt leave within a maximum of one year. Almost half of them named Corona as an important reason for the decision to move to the country or to a smaller town.
Of course, you don’t know how many people actually put this into practice, but plans to leave the city within six or twelve months can certainly be seen as relatively concrete, says study author Mathias Dolls. All almost 13 percent would certainly not leave the big cities.
It is also noticeable that people outside the big cities do not have a particularly high desire to move into them. They are not a place of longing, says Dolls. Nevertheless, there will of course still be people moving to the big cities. At the moment, no one can say whether there will be more immigrants or more relocations in the end.
Goal: smaller cities or suburbs
Specifically, 5.3 percent of the residents of the large cities surveyed said they want to leave the city within six months, and another 7.6 percent want to do so within twelve months. Moving to other large cities was not included. The destination of the city-weary residents were mostly smaller cities or the suburbs. In particular, families with children and people in the process of starting a family wanted to move to suburban areas and smaller cities, according to the Ifo. Dolls therefore warns that the connection to the suburbs and the educational infrastructure there will gain in importance.
In any case, the trend could continue: Beyond the quick relocation plans, many other residents of the big cities are considering moving. 18.5 percent want to leave in the next two or five years. Another 24.4 percent say such a move would be an option for them in principle. Not even half – 44.2 percent – refuse to leave the big cities. For comparison: in rural areas, more than two thirds were against moving.
Very few people want to leave Essen
Around 18,000 people were interviewed for the survey in May 2021. How many people want to leave the big cities varies greatly from place to place. This is particularly common in Hanover, where 16.5 percent of those surveyed said they wanted to move away within a year. It is followed by Frankfurt with 16.2 percent, Dortmund with 14.2 and Berlin and Stuttgart with 14.1 percent each. Relatively close to the average are Düsseldorf with 13.7, Cologne with 13.5, Munich with 12.5 and Nuremberg with 12 percent.
In Hamburg with 11.4 and Bremen with 11.1 percent, the desire to move is rather below average. The residents of Leipzig with 10.5 percent, Dresden with 9.5 percent and Essen with 7.6 percent want to leave their city the least.
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