Young people are leaving rural areas of Europe for the cities at a time when birth rates are at historic lows. As the countryside empties, should rising immigration be seen as a solution, not a problem?From the forested plains of northern Germany to the dusty hills of the Spain-Portugal border, from the agricultural heartlands of la France profonde to the subsistence farms of Greece and Slovakia, Europe is facing a silent blight: a steady, almost unremarked haemorrhage of people leaving the countryside and moving to the more prosperous cities.Even as Europe faces unprecedented external challenges with mass migration from the war zones of the Middle East and the poverty-stricken countries of north and west Africa, and even as the world’s population continues to expand inexorably, large parts of the EU face the opposite problem: the depopulation of rural areas. Continue reading...
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