Basically, most Germans today are urbanized.

Whether in the country or in the city - almost everyone shows a similar consumer behavior, watches Netflix, wants the fiber optic connection and hardly ever goes to church.

Improved mobility, working in the city and the Internet have led to a broad harmonization of lifestyles.

Uwe Ebbinghaus

Editor in the Feuilleton.

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But the Internet does not fulfill all wishes.

In times of the pandemic and the energy crisis, Germany is also a little rural.

The cities with their traditional domains - consumption, gastronomy, culture and education - have shown themselves to be vulnerable, and basic services could not be guaranteed.

Self-sufficiency, stockpiling and local recreation were suddenly discovered as crisis-proof values.

Urban exodus has increased, and in recent urban planning there is a trend towards self-sufficient neighborhoods and the 15-minute city where you can reach everything you need on foot.

The city becomes a large multi-village

The city becomes a large multi-village.

From here it is not far to the provocative question of Rem Koolhaas, who asks in his book "Countryside" about the future of country life after some consideration: "Who actually still likes cities?" But the village is not at the end of it either development arrived.

Architect Stefano Boeri, who designed the "Smart Forest City" near Cancún, contributes the thought-provoking dialectic: "Cities should become archipelagos of villages and villages should regain the small-town character that many used to have."

Urbanization here, ruralization there – neither touches the sometimes elusive core of rural life.

The state of the German dialects shows how threatened it is – language varieties that are on a par with Standard German but are still considered backwards.

The fatal thing about it: If you don't learn the dialect as a child, you won't be able to speak it fluently and pass it on for the rest of your life, it will die out as a cultural imprint.

Which would amount to impoverishment, which is in stark contrast to the fact that many people who grew up with the dialect say that their "hearts open" (Werner Herzog) when they hear it.

The biggest difference between town and country is probably a very different sense of time.

The opening credits of the crime series “Mord mit Aussicht”, one of the most successful on German television, which has meanwhile unfortunately slipped into the dull, makes this clear.

The inspector, who had been transferred from Cologne, rushes to her new place of work in the Eifel in her red convertible, she wants to do everything differently and better in the provinces - and ends up in the middle of a flock of sheep, the symbol of an almost natural deceleration that it is to be settled.

Borrow a ladder from your neighbor

In the city, you only learn to take time for unpretentious things in yoga and mindfulness courses; in the real village, it is lived practice that is passed on from the old to the young.

People in the country move differently than those in the city, there is a different understanding of representation and status symbols and what is embarrassing or funny.

The much-ridiculed provincials find a lot of things funny about the city: the often cramped living conditions, the inner-city traffic jams, the unresolved social problems, the willingness to stand in line for overpriced food, the cramped will to assert themselves.

If you wanted to narrow the question of how you can reliably tell whether you still live in the country or already in the city, it probably amounts to a reality test like this, which admittedly is a little reminiscent of the Abramović method: Borrow from your neighbors a ladder and talk to him about earlier;

use the familiar name of everyone around you;

go to a pub and set the mood;

offer to help a school friend build a house;

watch fireflies for half an hour or listen to the owls;

own forest or at least try to.

If most of these everyday retreats come naturally to you, then you certainly live in the countryside, where spring, summer and mid-autumn can make you feel like a winner simply for the surrounding natural beauty and endless sensory experiences.

The best things are free and they grow back on their own.

In winter, however, you sometimes need four-wheel drive, good nerves and frugality.