While people were increasingly drawn to big cities in past decades, many are now turning their backs on metropolises because of the high cost of housing. What does the big city have to offer - apart from work? How important is culture? An urban-rural study sheds light on this.
People who live in a big city make greater use of cultural offerings than people in rural areas. This applies to almost all genres, but especially to classical concerts and art exhibitions. Big city dwellers go to these events more than twice as often as those living in rural areas.
"The place of residence plays a significant role in whether and how frequently cultural offerings are used," explains Prof. Dr. Gunnar Otte, head of the study at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU).
The supply of rural areas is increasingly becoming the focus of social discussion.
In health care but also in other areas such as culture, a tendency toward unequal living conditions has been noted.
The study used official statistics to determine the supply of cultural facilities such as opera houses and cinemas in communities, focusing on six types of culture: Classical concerts and opera, pop, rock and electronic music concerts, pop and folk music concerts, theater, cinema and art exhibitions.
Findings: Cultural offerings increase with community size by a factor of 15 to 20. Likewise, the frequency of use of cultural offerings increases with the size of the place of residence. People go to the movies most often, the metropolitan population 4.2 times a year, the rural population 2.7 times a year. The fact that city dwellers make more frequent use of local cultural offerings is not due to their place of residence alone. Above all, education, but also income and age, influence the use of culture. Even if the composition of the population in the cities and in the countryside were identical, the rural population would use cultural offerings less frequently. The reason for this is assumed to be the poorer accessibility and the lower offer.
(Photo: © Andreas Glöckner, Pixabay)
