Large European cities are no longer the only vision of a successful life. Some young people are beginning to consider smaller and medium-sized cities, which offer more affordable housing, shorter commutes, more green spaces, and a stronger sense of community. This is not a mass exodus from metropolises. Rather, it's a change in what people expect from the place where they live. And one of the main reasons is very practical: the cost of living, time, and work arrangements. Just a few decades ago, it seemed that for a young person who wanted to study, find a good job, and "achieve something," the plan in Europe was essentially simple: move to a big city. Prague, Berlin, Vienna, Amsterdam, or Paris offered universities, job opportunities, cultural life, and a feeling of being at the center of things. Smaller cities were often places from which people left.
Today, this picture is no longer so clear-cut. This does not mean that large cities have ceased to be attractive. On the contrary. For many professions, especially in certain sectors such as services, technology, finance, or media, metropolises remain important centers of job opportunities. However, young people are increasingly interested in other factors when deciding where to live: how many hours a day they will spend commuting, how much of their salary will go towards rent, and whether they will have any time for life after work. This is where smaller and medium-sized cities come into play. Not as a romantic escape from the modern world, but as a practical alternative.
Just look at the Czech Republic. Prague remains the economic, political, and cultural center of the country, but it is becoming increasingly difficult for some young people to imagine living there long-term. The prices of apartments and rents are high, and owning a home is often a distant goal for someone starting their career. Brno, while expensive in its own right, is definitely no longer the "cheap Prague," yet it offers a different combination of job opportunities, universities, and urban life. And even further from Prague, you can find cities where the cost of living is significantly lower. This is not just about the price of the apartment itself. The overall equation is important.
If someone earns more in Prague but pays high rent, spends long hours commuting, and spends most of their free time in a city that is financially burdensome for them, a higher income does not automatically equate to a higher quality of life. For some young people, the question of how much money and time they actually have left after work is becoming increasingly important. Brno is an interesting example in this regard. It is large enough to offer universities, technology companies, cultural institutions, restaurants, and cafes, but it is also compact enough that people do not have to plan their lives around rush hour every day. You can get from the center to a quieter residential area or into nature in a short amount of time.
Germany, for example, has a long tradition of regional centers that are not just smaller versions of Berlin. Cities like Leipzig, Freiburg, Heidelberg, or Münster have their own universities, cultural institutions, and economic bases. Similarly, in Austria, alongside Vienna, there are cities such as Graz, Innsbruck, or Salzburg, which can offer both job and study opportunities while also providing a different urban experience than the capital city. This may be more important than it initially seems. The problem is not simply that young people suddenly "dislike big cities." Rather, they are beginning to distinguish between the size of a city and the quality of life. A large city can offer more opportunities. However, it can also mean longer commutes, higher housing costs, greater competition, and a more anonymous daily life.
A mid-sized city may not offer everything, but it can offer enough. And the word "enough" may be more important to a new generation than the idea of unlimited choice. Furthermore, this change is being driven by how people work today. The COVID-19 pandemic did not cause a revolution in housing, but it significantly accelerated the adoption of remote work and hybrid work arrangements. For some employees, this has changed a fundamental condition: if they don't have to be in the office five days a week, they don't necessarily have to live within a few subway stops of it. The question then becomes surprisingly simple: If someone doesn't have to commute to an office in the center of Prague, Berlin, or Paris every day, why would they necessarily need to live there?
Ten or fifteen years ago, such a question might have made less sense in many professions. Today, it makes more sense. Of course, remote work is not available to everyone. A doctor, teacher, manufacturing worker, or restaurant employee cannot easily move their job home like an analyst, programmer, or some administrative staff. Therefore, hybrid work certainly does not mean the end of offices or the end of big cities.
And this is where it's important to distinguish between two different trends. One trend moves from the metropolis to its wider surroundings: people work in Prague but live in a smaller town or village with good rail connections. The other leads to the strengthening of regional centers that have their own universities, employers, and services. Neither of these trends automatically means a return to rural areas. Rather, it expands the map of places where one can lead a relatively comfortable urban life.
At the same time, the pandemic has changed the way some people think about space. During lockdowns, things that were previously not given much attention became very concrete for many residents of big cities: the size of an apartment, access to a park, the ability to walk to the store, or simply escape from a densely built environment for a while. After returning to normal life, these preferences have not completely disappeared. In addition, some young people had already developed an interest in what is called "slow living," local businesses, cycling, walking, community life, or working from cafes, even before the pandemic. This is not a unified movement, and it certainly is not a trend that affects everyone. Nevertheless, it points to a broader change: technological progress does not always mean a desire for a larger, faster, and busier environment. Sometimes it enables the opposite.
Technology allows people to work for a company in a large city while living elsewhere. A smaller town doesn't necessarily mean boredom. This is perhaps one of the biggest stereotypes that needs to be re-evaluated. Today, young people don't have to choose a city based on its population size. What matters more is whether it offers a university, a good cafe, concerts, bookstores, sports facilities, coworking spaces, or places where they can regularly meet with others. Therefore, the size of a city isn't everything.
Some medium-sized cities can create surprisingly vibrant environments precisely because different aspects of life are located close to each other. The university isn't on the other side of town. The cafe isn't an hour away from the park. The concert venue isn't several stops away from the apartment. A person can manage work, sports, shopping, and meeting friends in a single day without spending half the evening commuting. This may seem like a small detail, but it's actually about time.
And time becomes one of the most valuable commodities in modern urban life. A large metropolis offers a vast array of opportunities, but it also requires people to navigate them. Medium-sized cities offer fewer options, but some of those options are physically much closer. For someone who doesn't want to constantly plan their daily life around transportation, this can be a significant difference.
In a metropolis, a person can live for years without knowing their neighbors. In a medium-sized city, it's more likely that you will repeatedly encounter the same people – in a cafe, at the library, at the farmers market, in the park, or at a local festival. This isn't automatically an advantage. A smaller environment can also be more closed off and less anonymous for some people than they might prefer. Nevertheless, physical proximity has a special value in the age of social networks. We can connect with people on the other side of Europe or the world in seconds. At the same time, we may not know someone who lives just one floor below us. The more daily communication takes place online, the more interesting it can be to have the simple opportunity to regularly meet someone in the same space.
That's why returning to smaller towns is not only a matter of real estate prices. It's also a question of what kind of daily life people consider desirable. However, this trend has very clear limits. It would be wrong to imagine Europe as a continent where young people are mass-exiting metropolises and moving to smaller towns. In many regions, the situation is exactly the opposite. Smaller towns and rural areas are still losing young residents, especially if they cannot offer them a university, quality jobs, or reliable transportation links. A smaller town isn't attractive simply because it's small.
If there is no work, quality public transport, schools, healthcare services or cultural life in it, lower housing prices alone will not convince young people. A cheaper apartment can be a very weak compensation for having to travel dozens of kilometers for every job opportunity. This is an important difference between the romantic notion of a small town and its real attractiveness. Therefore, the future probably won't lie in simply moving residents from big cities to small ones. Much more interesting will be whether it's possible to create a network of well-functioning regional centers that offer enough job opportunities, quality public space and services without having to copy the model of a large metropolis.
This is indeed a challenge for the cities themselves
If they want to attract and retain young residents, building several new apartment blocks isn't enough. People don't just need a place where they can sleep; they need a place where they can live. This means affordable housing, functioning public transport, parks, schools, sports facilities, cultural institutions, cafes, libraries and spaces where new communities can emerge. Accessibility is equally important. A medium-sized city may be attractive in itself, but its significance grows if it's well-connected to other regions. A fast train to Prague or Berlin could just as crucial for a smaller town as a new coworking space. People don't need everything right at their doorstep if they can get there quickly.
This is where the future of European regional centers might surprisingly be interesting. They don't have to compete with Prague, Berlin or Paris in offering more skyscrapers, offices or nightclubs. Their advantage could lie precisely in a different urban experience. A city where you can find work that sustains you, housing that doesn't burden your finances at every step, a park just minutes from home and a cafe where the barista knows your name.
This may sound less ambitious than life in the center of an European metropolis. But for some young people, this could be exactly the kind of ambition they are seeking today. Perhaps it's not that young Europeans have stopped dreaming about big cities; rather, their idea of what such a life should bring is changing. Not long ago, having an address in the city center was almost automatically associated with opportunity, success and modern lifestyle. Today, the question is more complex. For some, Prague, Berlin or Paris will remain irreplaceable places where they want to study, work and explore the world. For others, a city where you don't have to travel across the entire region for every small matter may be equally important – one where paying rent leaves enough money left over for something other than just another month of life.
So big cities probably won't disappear from young Europeans' visions; they simply no longer need to be their sole measure of success. And perhaps that is exactly what gives smaller towns a new charm: they don't aim to offer someone the whole world on a few square kilometers. They offer something more modest – and for some, still more valuable. A place where you can find work, friends, a bit of space and also time to truly enjoy your own life.
Prokop Stach