Question
Today，the quality of life in large cities is decreasing . What are the causes and solutions?
Sample answer
In recent decades, a large number of young population surge into major cities to pursue a better life, but to their disappointment, the quality of city life is not as high as they expected.
The fundamental reason for declining quality of life should be the centralization of various societal resources, such as hospitals, education institutions, large companies and so forth. Centralizing fine resources in a place is originally why a city is founded, but over concentration can lead to high density of population who come to share these resources by being employed or starting a business, and cause problems in many social aspects including traffic congestion, high living cost, severe pollution, etc. Ironically, in spite of tight squeeze in small flats, city dwellers have no opportunity to develop close relationships with their family, friends and neighbours and the reason for such social isolation is that young people are busy competing for precious opportunities for a successful career and life, leaving little time for their personal life.
To tackle these problems, diverse measures should be taken but the most effective one should be to uproot the resource centralization. By that I mean to move some industry, business and services from metropolises to smaller cities, thereby encouraging people to move out too. This decentralization can relieve the stress in pollution, traffic and competition.
Social isolation can directly contribute to lower level of happiness and satisfaction with life, and higher crime and suicide rates. But this can be addressed by knitting a close net within local community. To be specific, community center should be established as a stage, so as to organize community activities to provide residents chances to get familiar with their neighbours and to offer domestic service to family with young children and elderly members. Property developers should be required to design public space in residential areas where children and parents can meet others and consequently establish connection with their community.
It is common in many countries that urbanization is often accompanied with some social issues. Nonetheless, these issues can be resolved by some active and positive actions and I personally think that decentralization is the most effective one.
