To understand the most important characteristics of a society, one must study its major cities.Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In deve

Examples of the high value placed on cities can be readily observed from tourist guidebooks and advertisements, which almost exclusively describe major cities. Those interested in exploring France are told to look at Paris, Anglophiles are ushered to London, and would-be Chinese scholars are directed to Beijing or Shanghai. It is no great surprise that cities are prized this much; even during the Industrial Revolution in the United States, cities were declared to be society’s cornerstone and greatest jewel. Nevertheless, this extreme urban focus results in tourists and scholars alike losing sight of a society on a holistic level and even worse, can foster assumptions about homogeneity that create great harm.

In choosing to focus only on major cities, one could easily overlook the cultural artifacts that are most important to a society. A look at the distribution of cultural monuments in Japan clearly illustrates this point. While there are some significant landmarks within urban areas, such as the historic old city located in Kyoto, the vast majority of such landmarks are in the surrounding countryside, including all the most ancient temples and hot springs. These are crucial to understanding the place religion has held in Japanese society throughout history and consequently, the place it holds today in shaping modern values. A similar example can be seen in the United States, where examining only cities means overlooking the beautiful national parks spanning vast regions of countryside. The government protections placed on this land indicate its significance to the American people and society, but it would be impossible to gain a sense of these cultural monuments without venturing beyond the city.

One also loses sight of the broader, holistic picture of how a society operates on an economic level. For example, in the United States, examining only New York City or Los Angeles would give the impression that food is obtained exclusively as imported goods. Foreign snacks and tropical fruit marked with “Brazil” or “Mexico” stickers abound, without any sense of the thriving agriculture existing within America’s own borders. Similarly, gas stations are ubiquitous but without any sense of where the fuel originates. A study of the United States that instead included more rural and out-of-the-way areas would reveal hot spots of natural gas hydrofracking. These uniquely American resources are instrumental to our economy’s operation because they introduce increasing numbers of jobs and decrease our reliance on other countries, but they would be entirely unseen in an overly urban focus.

Even more importantly, looking at only cities gives a false impression of homogeneity within the population. Although cities are often known as meccas of cultural mixing, they are near-homogeneous in one important respect: political partisanship. A common pattern is seen across many countries, such as the United States, France, and Germany, in which urban populations are significantly more liberal than their rural counterparts. It is important to include these areas in any study of a society in order to understand their values and not just those of liberals. In the United States in particular, those living in rural regions have often felt that their concerns are ignored and overshadowed, leading to many political tensions and a divide within the country. For instance, the push for greener fuels in order to address climate change concerns has struck fear in many of those employed by the coal industry. When they feel like these concerns are being ignored by politicians, they are in kind less likely to listen to the other side, which makes it nearly impossible for resolutions and compromises to be made. This demonstrates that an urban focus can not only be misleading but also harmful to the society as a whole.

While cities are often prized as an exciting cross-section of a society, they do not include many of the cultural and economic elements crucial to understanding how a given society operates on a broader level. This becomes dangerous when it leads to assumptions about homogeneity within the population, fostering political tensions and divides that can take a long time to recover from.