A rise in standard of living in a country seems to benefit cities more than rural areas. What problems might those differences cause? How can these problems be reduced?

A nation's increasing living standard tends to give more advantages to cities than countryside, such as more amenities, health care support, educational institutions and job opportunities. This essay will elaborate some issues arising from this phenomenon such as overcrowding in cities and loss of labour force in rural areas as well as the corresponding solutions. To begin with, since urban citizens enjoy better quality of life and probably more income, rural population will then prefer moving to the cities leading to a problem of overcrowding. It makes the lives in cities more difficult as people need to compete for multiple necessities in daily life ranging from accommodation, school placements to usage of roads. Moreover, young and well-educated workers in rural areas are diverted to cities, resulting in a loss of labour force in the countryside. As a result many manual works or professional jobs in the rural areas are no longer sustainable, causing further detrimental impacts to the local economy. There are some measures that can be taken by the government to remedy the problems. First of all, different types of development projects can be carried out to encourage rural people to stay and even attract metropolitans to come. For instance, the council of Reading in the United Kingdom has provided incentives to the development of information and technology industries over this decade so that more programmers and engineers move from London to this suburb towns for living. Moreover, more universities can be built in rural areas so as to attract more students to come and stay. The second measure is more promotion of advantages of rural areas, such as more open space for young families, less traffic congestion and shorter waiting time for medical follow-ups. In conclusion, the rise in living standard makes more benefit to cities than countrysides, resulting in overcrowding in the cities and loss of labour force in the rural areas. However, government can support more development projects in the rural areas and promote the advantages of countryside to mitigate the issues.