»Flight from Village« and its rural and Urban Implications

Transfer of peasants to urban centers represents one of the central social phenomena in the world. Everything directs to that that urban way of life will become dominant. Judging from the sociological point of view »the flight from village« is a complex social process which is followed by many other changes. In our country a mass migration from the countryside to the towns started after the last world war. Demographer Dolfe Vogelnik states that the migratory loss of rural settlements equals about 90.0% of their natural increase. The author has studied the consequences of the rapid influx of peasants m Vojvodina’s urban centers and in this article he presents in a wider sense problems related to social implications of rural exodus in villages and towns. In this respect he trys to systematize differences between the rural and the urban way of lives. In a town one lives more freely, with more indenpendency and individualism. In villages contacts of individuals are »primary«, informal and more frequent. In town work is easier, shorter and results in a higher income, while in village it is harder and crops always depend on »the will of nature«. The author trys to presents the specific moments which have caused the migration of agricultural population in Yugoslavia. It is a question of an inherited overpopulation and unstability of the agrarian policy. . The process of aging of agricultural population is one of the most significant effect of the rural exodus. Parallel with this female labour force becomes more active and in many agricultural works it takes over the role of migrated males. The author thinks that the consequences of this »flight« are more visible and more difficult in towns than in villages. In that respect he mentions »wild« urban quarters settled by rural newcomers. These quarters become » . . . one of the gratest evils of the century, symbols of dirt and ordeals, scum that beats the urban walls«. Here peasants group according to their ethnical characteristics. They become semicitizens who live in a vacuum between the century lasting tradition and new forms of urban way of life. Peasant hardly suceed in satisfying his original ambitions tied with his arrival in town and therefore often comes in conflict with the new environment, social norms, and becomes a bearer of social and other deviations. In »wild« settlements there are not only various seaknesses but also peculiar forms of social solidarity similar to those in rural communities. At the end the author pleads for the planned transfer of people from countryside to urban areas, because this would have a positive influence on the balanced general development