In the Czech Republic, a growing number of middle-class residents are moving away from Prague due to the city’s high housing costs.
This trend is reflected in an increasing number of housing subsidy recipients outside the capital. The shift has raised concerns over social isolation, as certain regions previously not considered areas of economic strain are seeing a rise in subsidy recipients.
Lucie Trlifajová, an analyst at the Agency for Social Isolation, noted, “When talking about the threat of social isolation, it’s worth considering the fact that a new group of people is emerging outside the places where we usually look for them.” The agency’s annual social isolation index has highlighted that the Central Bohemia region is starting to resemble areas such as Ústí nad Labem, Karlovy Vary, and Moravian-Silesian regions, where subsidies have been more common.
Trlifajová speculated that this trend may indicate a shift in housing dynamics, where people are opting for residences in municipalities surrounding Prague, seeking more affordable living options. However, she emphasized that this is a hypothesis that warrants further detailed analysis.
Editors at Seznam Zprávy conducted an investigation and found supporting evidence for this theory. By comparing housing subsidy data from 2021—marking the start of the inflation crisis—to 2023 in Central Bohemia, they observed that the number of subsidy recipients more than doubled in this region, contrasting with a slower increase in Prague and across the country.
The data also revealed that, relative to the national average, all districts in the region experienced a marked rise in housing subsidy recipients from 2022 to 2023. For instance, municipalities like Černošice saw significant growth, further underscoring the trend.
