The setting of the new century is the big city, maybe the metropolis. The fact could have a lot of implications, redrawing less by less our notion of community. In a lot of themes, from the Terrorism to the politics, arriving at the European policies, the city is considered today a preferential target. As a result, nobody cares about villages, and the detachment between the two is evident.
Terrorism
New York 2001 and 2016, Madrid 2004, London 2005 and 2017, Paris 2015 and 2017, Manchester 2017. These are few examples of terrorist attacks in some of the most important Western big cities.For the terrorists, hitting a big city is more impressive and more damaging than a village, less known and less populated.
The undergrounds are privileged as an objective, but nowadays also the big squares and the bridges are. Beat the people in a crowded place guiding a van (such as happened in Nice in 2016 and in London in 2017) is less complex than buying explosive.
Also, the NATO recognised the importance of the surroundings of cities and metropolis in a document called "Urban Operations 2020": "over 70 % of the worldwide population is supposed to live in urban zones the next years". For this reason, also the military training and the warfare tactics are studied to control the areas of big conurbations.
Politics
The difference between cities and villages or countries is clear in politics, too. Last elections in Western nations (Brexit in the UK, presidential votes in the US and in France, the referendum in Turkey) registered a huge gap.
As Mr Gianni Riotta stated in the Italian newspaper "La Stampa" (on April, 27) in the villages won Brexit, Trump, Marine Le Pen, Erdogan, while in the cities won No Brexit, Hillary Clinton, Emmanuel Macron, No Erdogan.
In Turkey, Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir voted against the president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on the contrary, the countries and the villages voted for him.
Mrs Hillary Clinton won against Mr Donald Trump in 48 on 50 urban counties, losing instead in the 50 counties less populated. London, Manchester, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Oxford, Cambridge voted against Brexit, instead of in the countries and in the former industrial areas the win of Brexit reach the 55 %.
Thus, it seems that a lot of politicians forgot the importance of the villages and the countries.
Europe
The European Union give the impression to make the same mistake, too. It realised the disparity between the metropolis and the villages a few years ago, betting on the big cities. Within the project "Europe 2020" (dated 2010), metropolitan areas and region-cities are recognised as the driving forces of the continent.
75 % of the people live in urban areas, where the 70 % of the European GDP has been produced. In a report on the subject, initiated by the EU (dated 2011), Mr Joost Van Lersel clarified that "cities and metropolitan areas, including stakeholders and civil society, must be accepted as co-actors in implementing policies and Eu programmes".
In the next years, big cities would be able to receive money and funds directly from the European Union, bypassing the State and the other local powers. The expected future is in the metropolis. Yet, what's a nation but the villages?
