To Understand The Most Important Characteristics Of A Society, One Must Study Its Major Cities

A society is made of different cities, with similar or varying cultural, political, social and economic values. These values are seen through the inhabitants of the various cities. The life they live is a typical reflection of the characteristics of the society. For some societies, the cities share similarities in these values; for others, the cities do not share similarities in the values mentioned. Therefore, the statement that to understand the most important characteristics of a society, one must study its major cities will not be true for all societies.

Societies can be classified into two major categories - homogeneous and heterogeneous societies. Homogeneous societies are societies whose cities share the same cultural, political, social and economic values. Such societies are governed by one ruler. The cities that make up the society speak the same language and so on. For such a society it may be easy to understand its characteristics by studying the major cities - in which case the major cities can be seen as those cities that have minor differences in their culture, economic, political and social lives - yet some values contributed by the cities not studied will not be understood.

A heterogeneous society is one whose cities have great differences in their social, economic, political and cultural values. The cities of such a society are classified based on these differences in their way of life. For example, in Nigeria, you can count as much as 254 tribes. These different tribes speak different languages, have different kinds of food, and marriage rites as well. For such a society, one cannot understand the characteristics by studying the major cities. You need to study all the cities to understand the features of the society.

Additionally, for some societies, their economic values are distributed across the cities. The urban areas host the industries as well as the major markets while the rural areas are where the farms are located. The population is also distributed in similar pattern. Therefore to understand such a society, one need to study the entire cities - urban and rural.

In conclusion, it will be misleading to study some cities in a society and assume the understanding of the most important characteristics of the society because every city in a society play important roles that need to be understood.