#188 Abandoned Towns in English
Hi, everybody! I am Georgiana, your English teacher and founder of SpeakEnglishPodcast.com. My mission is to help you speak English fluently.
Today I’m going to talk about abandoned towns, where no one lives anymore for one reason or another.
With a mini-story, we will meet John, a man who, tired of his lifestyle, makes a radical decision.
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Okay, let’s get to today’s topic.
In every country in the world, there are villages where no one lives.
I find this phenomenon fascinating.
There are several words you can use to describe such a town. They all mean the same thing:
- Abandoned: This means that those who lived in that area have left. Therefore, people abandoned the place at some point in the past.
- Uninhabited: This word implies that it was previously inhabited. The inhabitants inhabit a place. If those people leave and don’t live there anymore, it becomes uninhabited.
- Ghost. A ghost town is simply a town without inhabitants, without anyone living there. This word sometimes gives a sinister air to the place. All kinds of legends can arise in certain abandoned places. Some people’s imaginations can be very vivid.
- Deserted merely means that there is no one there. For example: “The village was deserted, there was absolutely no one.”
Now, let’s use a little imagination. Imagine that you decide to move to a deserted town. Moving means going to live permanently in a new place. So, you would be the only inhabitant. You could put a sign with the name of the village and the number of inhabitants: one.
There are many advantages. For example, if you have a car, you can park almost anywhere. No more going around and around the streets to find a parking space. You don’t have to respect speed limits or traffic lights, which don’t work, or don’t exist because there is no police.
As for the neighbours…no more hassles, no more noises, no more arguments. You can just relax because no one is going to bother you.
Since you are alone in town, you can run for mayor. The result would be obvious. Only you would vote, and you would win with 100% of the votes. Unbelievable!
Now you could say, But what about the supplies? The food? Well, you can order on Amazon, right? I’m sure they won’t get the wrong house.
There’s just one small problem. A place like this can be terrifying. Being all alone in a town and hearing a strange noise. I don’t know; maybe it’s not such a good idea.
But in reality, multiple causes explain why certain towns are abandoned. Here are a few:
– Epidemics. Certain towns suffered devastating epidemics such as smallpox, typhus, or cholera that reduced the population.
– Decline of mining. The mines’ work attracted many people, and many houses were built, forming towns near the mine. When the mine was no longer profitable, people left the village.
– Industrial revolution. Many peasants engaged in agriculture left their hard work to go to the factories to get hard but perhaps safer work.
Many villages are not abandoned, but every year they lose inhabitants. There are several initiatives to stop this depopulation. Some towns even offer free housing and work. There are also subsidies for companies and entrepreneurs to set up their business there. The truth is that with the Internet, perhaps some of these towns can be saved because it is feasible to run a business with a computer.