[blackwasp]

Full article and source for images - Economic Times.

Many people living in metro cities are now looking at moving to tier 2 cities. Some of the reasons cited are high pollution and cost of living. The survey found that people are even willing to take a pay cut as high as 40% to move to a tier 2 city.

• High pollution and cost of living are the main drivers, with 9% willing to take more than 40% pay cut to shift, reveals the online survey.


• Pollution has clearly emerged as the top reason for wanting to shift out of a metro to a tier 2/3 city for most of the age groups.


• The urgency to move out is obvious, with 30% wanting to shift out in five years, and another 26% just waiting for the right job to come along.

Originally Posted by Samurai

Ahem, I see so many YESes, do we all agree on what a Tier-2 city is?

Tier-1 (X) : Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Pune

Tier-2 (Y) : Agra, Ajmer, Aligarh, Amravati, Amritsar, Asansol, Aurangabad, Bareilly, Belgaum, Bhavnagar, Bhiwandi, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Bikaner, Bilaspur, Bokaro Steel City, Chandigarh, Coimbatore Nagpur, Cuttack, Dehradun, Dhanbad, Bhilai, Durgapur, Erode, Faridabad, Firozabad, Ghaziabad, Gorakhpur, Gulbarga, Guntur, Gwalior, Gurgaon, Guwahati, Hubli–Dharwad, Indore, Jabalpur, Jaipur, Jalandhar, Jammu, Jamnagar, Jamshedpur, Jhansi, Jodhpur, Kakinada, Kannur, Kanpur, Kochi, Kottayam, Kolhapur, Kollam, Kota, Kozhikode, Kurnool, Ludhiana, Lucknow, Madurai, Malappuram, Mathura, Goa, Mangalore, Meerut, Moradabad, Mysore, Nanded, Nashik, Nellore, Noida, Palakkad, Patna, Perinthalmanna, Pondicherry, Purulia Allahabad, Raipur, Rajkot, Rajahmundry, Ranchi, Rourkela, Salem, Sangli, Siliguri, Solapur, Srinagar, Thiruvananthapuram, Thrissur, Tiruchirappalli, Tirur, Tirupati, Tirunelveli, Tiruppur, Tiruvannamalai, Ujjain, Bijapur, Vadodara, Varanasi, Vasai-Virar City, Vijayawada, Vellore, Warangal, Surat and Visakhapatnam

Tier-3 (Z): The Rest.

source

I actually moved from Tier-1 to Tier-3 in 2006, and in 2010 due to my son's therapy requirements, my family had to move back to Bangalore. I have been spending 50:50 time between a Tier-1 and Tier-3 city every month.

[blackwasp]

Personally for me, I would definitely like to move. Few reasons from my end:
• Cheaper real-estate (= a house with a 4 car garage built-in than a common apartment parking lot).
• Smaller town means less traffic, and smaller area to travel from one end to the other. Highway access is also closer
• No typical traffic patterns (morning / evening peak hours)
• Towns like Mysuru, Kolhpaur are well-connected, have good public transport, airports, etc. Taking weekend roadtrips is also much better from them compared to say Mumbai.
• Amazon, Flipkart provide services in such places. There is high speed internet available too these days, which would have probably not been the case 10 years ago.
• No dearth of top medical facilities and an overall better way of life.

[GTO]

Voted for NO.

Reason = I love Bombay. In fact, I wouldn't leave Bombay for any city in India, or the world . Of course, it helps that I don't have too many of the big city problems either (e.g. no traffic-laden daily commute to work) or issue with property prices (family owns the building).

This city has my everything & I have my 'everyone' here.

[saisailendra]

Originally Posted by GTO

Reason = I love Bombay.

Same thing here too. I love Hyderabad.

Our bodies are extraordinary machines that can adapt to the environment. I can also see some percentage of the fresh generation including myself more inclined towards rejuvinating nature by some meaningful acts like increasing plantation from our side (every drop counts and adds to the ocean).

Moving to a different place will take time for me to adjust to the people and everything else which I'm not inclined towards. And the feeling of security of being in "My Place" which I've been for years, won't be the same once I move.

[Red Liner]

I would move in a jiffy to the outskirts of a town in the mountains:

1. Less rent
2. Better air quality, less health issues
3. Better exercise, walk most places
4. No zomato or swiggy, better food, organic even, less health issues
5. All other fixed and variable costs will be a fraction
6. Way less distractions, more time in hand to pursue your interests
7. Lots of day dreaming is a part of the package.

[vibbs]

What is the definition of a tier 2 city?
I have experience of living in Delhi, pune, calicut, mumbai and Bangalore in India. I have now relocated to Singapore and dont see myself willingly relocating back to India in the near future. Despite the higher cost of living, the efficiency with which the place is run and the higher quality of life trumps all the patriotic feelings that may prompt me to come back. Moreover a flight to Kochi / coimbatore(my home town) is only 4.5 hrs much easier than coming from any non metro city in India.

That said, if i was in India, I dont see many reasons why I should leave Pune and relocate to a smaller city unless going back to Kerala. So back to my previous question, what is a tier 2 city? Is Pune a tier 1 city?

[srini1785]

Voted : Yes.

Not now, after retirement maybe. One thing i did notice is that between a metropolis and a tier 3 town, the cultural difference is almost as big as the difference between india and say US or any western country even if these two places are in the same state. That said , there are also some isolated spots within a city that offer you a world away from what a busy metropolis usually is associated with. You just have to find it.

[ashis89]

I voted Yes!

I have spent 6 years of my life in Bhubaneswar and today, my parents stay in the city which means I get to visit at least twice a year. In the meanwhile, I have spent another 6 years in cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai. I don't see these Metro cities offering anything extra over a tier 3 city.

The basis of my opinion are based on the same factors explained by blackwasp.

[Eddy]

I would definitely like to move out from Delhi, provided me and my wife can both find equivalent job options. Open to moving to Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Pune, Goa etc.

I don't want to relocate to any city where I will face a language barrier - I absolutely hate that.

[boniver]

No.

I live 25kms away from the main city and I absolutely HATE commuting by public transport everyday. Right from the age of 2 (playschool) to now (college), I've spent ~4 hours+ just commuting daily.
I'd love to shift to a main city asap (hopefully by next year), mainly because:
1. Commute time would be less.
2. I won't have to use public transport anymore. Right now, driving ~70+kms daily in a petrol car returning ~10kmpl isn't an affordable option for me, tbh.

[DigitalOne]

Absolutely, Yes. Since I don't have dependents, my move is already planned and chalked out . Only a couple of years in Bangalore, and then shift out. The money I would be saving would afford us a foreign trip every year.

[SideView]

Even I would vote “Yes” for this, but would i really take a pay cut and move? No.

People who are paying EMIs wouldnt take the risk of paycut to move out.

[msd7]

I believe that very few people are satisfied with what they have.

I have voted NO.

I have shifted from a bigger tier 2 city (Vadodara)to a tier 3 city(Aligarh). There are some problems in small towns which you would realise only if you stay there, like:-

1) Healthcare:- I am a medical student and went for a visit in a small town, the healthcare facilities there are pathetic. No doctors, no hygiene and no facilities.

2) We forget the convenience that OLA/UBER and online grocery markets provide. Also the quicker delivery of Amazon and good network coverage.

3)Also most of the major service centers and bank branches are located in the metros. I realised that there is no branch of Citibank(the bank in which I have an account) where I study. What to do in case of an emergency??

The metros may have traffic and real estate issues but shifting to a small town permanently for those who stay in metros will be very difficult. According to me going to a small town or hill station for a detox session once in a month will suffice rather than permanently shifting.

PS:- As I said in my first line my opinion might change if I shift to a metro.

[StarrySky]

I have already done it once a decade back - when I moved from Bangalore to Kochi. I had just moved back to Bangalore after a 2-year stint abroad and that possibly influenced my thinking that Bangalore was too crowded and polluted. I was already wondering if I should leave Bangalore, when a good job opportunity came up in Kochi. It was also favourable timing otherwise - my daughter had not yet started school, my wife wasn't working and was happy to move closer to our families, I had no home loan EMIs to pay in Bangalore. It turned out to be an easy decision to make. I did not regret it at all, although later a better opportunity tempted me to relocate outside India.

[V.Narayan]

This is something my wife and me though of occasionally - move to a smaller city or move to the mountains with the closeness to nature, clean air etc. We thought of Ramgarh, Uttrakhand as one alternative. We even evaluated the pros and cons of a farm say one or two hours out of Gurgaon. In the end we said let's stay put. The social circle, the business network (very critical for she & me), the access to the facilities of a metro, the responsibilities of managing very old parents all weighed in favour of staying put. The farm as a getaway lingered on as a possibility till we understood from our friends just how much effort and time they spent just maintaining the place. So we are back to square one.