The depopulation of rural areas is the great problem facing dozens of countries today. In Magnet we recently told in this article how some regions of Japan are offering to pay young couples to move to aging and “empty” cities. Nothing less than 2,000 euros per couple. In Italy, a similar campaign was carried out last year by the government in which 21 towns offered houses for 1 euro. Also with the aim of stopping the rural exodus they face.
Now it is Spain’s turn. Some towns in our country are also looking for desperate solutions to attract young people and repopulate rural areas. Some offer very low rents. Others even financial aid just for moving there.
The emptied Spain is a phenomenon that worsens with the years. Depopulation is a reality if we look at the data: between 1996 and 2020 the population in rural municipalities grew, on average, by 9.6%. However, that growth was very unevenly distributed. In Castilla y León, for example, it fell by 19.7%. Furthermore, according to INEthe region faces the loss of 240,000 inhabitants in the next 15 years.
The reasons are multiple and very different. Among them is the urban-rural economic gap, which is also very deep. Urban centers concentrate almost 65% of employment and in turn generate more than 66% of GDP. At the other extreme, rural areas only have 2% of employment. The income gap also seems to be a strong incentive to attract young talent. Those in large cities earn almost 5,000 euros more per year than those in small municipalities.
The towns that pay to go live there
And then there are these places, deserving of a medal for the effort they have put into repopulating themselves in the face of an increasingly black future. Everything we discussed above brings us to a point where taking extreme measures to contain equally extreme problems is the most effective solution. That is why several towns in our country have chosen to auction houses, offer rent at very low prices and even pay citizens to live in their territory. All kinds of facilities for you to go and settle.
This is the case of Olmeda de la Cuesta, in Cuenca. This town auctions land for between 200 and 3,000 euros, depending on the size. The only requirement to join the nearly 20 current inhabitants that it has registered is to build a house on it within a maximum period of three years. A somewhat difficult feat, but not impossible.
Greeks have gone further, in Teruel. This town located in the Sierra de Albarracín with only 130 inhabitants offers its potential neighbors the possibility of accessing a job and three months of free rent. Afterwards, the rent will be only 225 euros per month. Of course, they will give aid to families: specifically 50 euros per child of school age.
In Castellón, the strategy was also more around the workplace and aimed at the unemployed. In 2018, the town of Portell with only 200 inhabitants, in the Els Ports region, launched a program to attract families with school-age children who wanted to settle there. They offered a job and a rent of only 50 euros per month. More than 20 families showed up and had to carry out a selection process because there were only three homes and seven jobs offered.
Northern Spain is not far behind. Galicia is the community that is most committed to these measures. Xesta, in Pontevedra only has 50 inhabitants. To increase that figure, it offers rentals from 100 euros. And Rubiá, in Orense, although it still has 1,400 inhabitants, pays a bonus of 100 to 150 euros for each person who moves there. Ponga, in Asturias, takes the cake. No less than 3,000 euros for couples who settle permanently and another 3,000 for each child born in the town.
The pandemic has accelerated the trend
The coronavirus crisis has created a new normal in which we can reside untethered from the office. And precisely the phenomenon of teleworking and the so-called new digital nomads have made many rural areas of Europe and the US contemplate the possibility of attracting new inhabitants and saving their old streets. In other words, in a context of increasing labor relocation, small cities have won. In fact, after the epidemic, many people reconsidered a change of life: moving away to some remote place, away from the noise of the big city and its high cost of living.
The rewards, such as the one offered by Tulsa, in Oklahoma (USA), amount to 8,800 euros whoever moves there with the following requirements: you have to live in Tusla for at least one year and be an entrepreneur or worker of at least 18 years. New Haven, in Connecticut, can give new residents up to 72,600 euros through the program New Haven: 9,000 euros as a down payment for the purchase of a house, 27,000 euros for home renovations and 36,000 euros to pay student fees.
In Canada, more of the same. In the city of Saskatchewan it is offered through its program Graduate Retention Program Application up to 18,000 euros to students who enroll and manage to graduate from university programs in the city.
But the most prominent case is here in Europe. Two small towns in Italy offered cash for telecommuters who move there. We have told it in Xataka. One of them is Santa Fiora, in the region of Tuscany, a town with less than 3,000 inhabitants that gives up to 200 euros a month to anyone who wants to move their home to one of its houses of toasted stone and reddish tiles. Locana, in the Alps, announced that it will pay 9,000 euros over three years to families who move there to live, as long as they have a child and a minimum salary of 6,000 euros.
The reality is this. People have decided to say goodbye to the rural world. But maybe with a job and an envelope of bills you decide to think twice.