Countryside or the city - Essay Example

Introduction Life in the urban areas is often preferable than the countryside because of the convenience that comes with it as well as the comfort it offers. This stems from the fact that cities offer several facilities that make life easier as compared to life in the rural areas or the countryside. Such facilities may include recreational facilities, hospitals schools and transport facilities that make life easier for the inhabitants of these areas as opposed to the conditions that people often find themselves in countryside situations. Wall suggests that a balance must be drawn between the nature and the well-being of a child in their daily upbringing. The argument here is that one should make a point of meeting with nature in order to feel to be truly human (Wall 251). Therefore every child is entitled to enjoy the services of recreation for example the fresh air camps established in Canada often found in urban areas were an integral part of the development of the child. For those who hated the city life due to the conditions prevailing in the city, they could bring the country life into the city through establishing summer camps in the city in what were known as fresh air camps. All in all, the fear that pushed for the formation of these camps was found to be unfounded as the children could still grow up uprightly despite being in urban environments and at the same time enjoy the leisure activities. Dickson in discussing the advantages of access to modern appliances and equipment as an advantage in the urban areas argues that as the trends in modernization and urbanization changed, the life of the children growing up in these areas was affected in one way or the other (Dickson 17). Moreover, in the country side one will find that a ten year old does not know how to use a laptop, whereas a child who has been brought up in the city knows how to handle it very well. In addition, most people who are working and live in the urban areas are in a position to work and at the same time have a chance to continue with their education. This is because in the urban the activities are usually 24/7 and therefore one will be in a position to work during the day and attend a part time class during the night. This is opposed to the countryside where there are no such services or one cannot find colleges or universities to offer part time classes. Therefore, according to him, the urbanization enabled the children in the newly modernized society to have access to household appliances such as the television that enabled the children grow up in a new world with different views of the world different from the isolated view and thought of the rural life that involved just farming. The advantage of these advances in life is that they improved the quality of life of these people who had lived a primitive and rudimentary life. Healthcare and the overall wellbeing of an individual is most of the time influenced by the person and the environment the person lives in (Herrick 81). When a person attends a healthcare in the countryside and the doctor finds that his /her condition is a serious one he/she is usually referred to the urban hospitals. In addition most pregnant women living in the country side usually have difficulties when giving birth since most of them do it at home and therefore many of them end up dying due to lack of assistance. This is opposed into the urban life where many women are rushed to the hospitals and are assisted by professional doctors when giving birth. This is because in the urban hospital there are enough equipment’s and medicines to cater for that person. In addition, most of the times the urban areas always have the best healthcare facilities for taking care of a person when sick as opposed to the countryside which often have derelict and neglected facilities. It is also advantageous that in urban areas there are reliable means of transport (Herrick 115) that can be used to transport a person who falls ill at any given time; thus, assuring faster evacuation of persons who are sick. This is opposed to the rural or countryside that has unreliable transport due to the poor roads and lack of vehicles or are inaccessible for evacuation of sick people; therefore, this explains why most people would prefer to live in urban areas as opposed to the rural areas. In the countryside there are very rare job opportunities, therefore, most people endorse in farming since that is the only and the beast way they do in order to get their daily food. Many youths living in the countryside, after completing their education prefer moving to the urban areas to seek for employment. Therefore, those who do not get a chance to move to the urban areas gets involved in criminal activities such as stealing and harassing the rest of the villagers. Moreover, on the city life can never be boring since there are clubs, big restaurants, museums where a person can take his/her family for a family fun day. The vulnerability of the rural or countryside youth as compared to the urban youth differs in significant ways; this is because of the restricted opportunities in which the youth can secure employment for advancing socially or economically (Shortall 256). In addition, the famous and the big universities and colleges are usually found in the urban areas, they are equipped with modern libraries, ICT services and more technology which helps a person to improve academically. Moreover, teachers in the rural areas are not well experienced since they attended the small colleges found in the countryside and therefore, their teaching services are usually very poor. Therefore, children studying in the urban areas have a very high chance to get well-paying jobs since they performed well as opposed to those living in the countryside since they did not get a chance to get opposed to the modern facilities which would have improved their performances. Children in such rural societies are faced with such problems as they have little or no control of some factors of production for example labor and modes of distribution making them not be able to reap the benefits of a valued social life that guarantees personal fulfillment. This creates differential development among boys and girls as they involve in different activities that do not reflect their ages and in comparison with their colleagues in urban areas (Shortall 259). For example, apart from visiting sports facilities, most youth in the countryside do not venture outside the house as compared to their urban counterparts who have several activities they can get involved in. Having a close emotional bond between an individual and a fellow human being contributes to the well-being and ultimate development of a person mostly dependent on his peers (Sigelman and Rider 478). The acceptances of a person by fellow peers enable a person to have the opportunity to develop normally as the people in your age group (Sigelman and Rider 476). The advantage of growing up in an urban setting as opposed to the rural life is that in an urban society, there are many networks a child can make through meeting new friends and different cultures that enable the child to grow up while appreciating different cultures that he encounters. This is as opposed to the rural child who in most cases lives in seclusion and does not have the opportunity to meet new accomplices that can help shape the behavior in appreciation of other aspects of life. Work Cited Dickson, Foster. Children of the changing south: Accounts of Growing Up During and After Integration. North Carolina: McFarland, 2012. Print. Herrick, Clare. Governing Health and Consumption: Sensible Citizens, Behavior and the City. London: The Policy Press University of Bristol, 2011. Print. Sigelman, Carol. K., Rider Elizabeth. A. Life- Span Human Development. Publishing Company. Stamford: Cengage Learning, 2011. Print. Shortall, Sally. A living Country side. The politics of Sustainable development in Rural Ireland. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2012. Print Wall, Sharon. The Nurture of nature: Childhood, Anti modernism, and Ontario. Columbia: UBC Press, 2009. Print. Read More