Essay plan: opinion (agree or disagree)

In many developing countries, villages are emptying as young people board buses for the city. This essay examines why the drift happens and the difficulties it creates on both ends of the journey. The causes are mostly economic. Farming incomes are unpredictable and often insulting for the hours worked, while cities promise salaried jobs, faster internet and the possibility of a different life. Education pulls in the same direction: the best universities, and the internships that follow them, are almost always urban. There is a social engine too, since every successful cousin who returns for the holidays with a smartphone and new clothes quietly recruits the next wave of migrants. The problems, however, land on both ends of the road. Cities strain under the arrival of thousands of newcomers each week: rents climb, traffic thickens, and informal settlements spread because housing cannot keep pace. Many migrants end up underemployed, riding motorcycle taxis with certificates in their bags. Meanwhile the villages lose exactly the people they need most, leaving farms in the hands of the elderly and shrinking the local market for every trader who stays. Food production suffers, and the countryside ages. In summary, young people leave because opportunity is concentrated in cities, and their departure overloads urban services while draining rural communities of energy and labour. Until decent jobs and schools exist outside the big cities, the buses will remain full.