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 developing and supporting your position, you should consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true and explain how these considerations shape your position.

From the time humankind created the first ancient civilizations all the way to modern times, cities have always played a central role in how humans govern and act in a society. However, despite cities’ undeniable contribution to society’s important characteristics, there are other elements as well that bolster or alter society’s ever-growing progress. For this reason, in order to comprehend society’s most important characteristics, one must study these supporting characteristics of society that help the cities thrive in the first place.

Cities house many individuals, and the resources for that do not come from the city itself the majority of the time. For example, big supermarket chains like Walmart get their produce from farms that grow these sought-after crops and raise livestock in rural areas far from cities. From these locations of prolific husbandry, farmers bring these crops to Walmart owned factories that check that the imported goods safely consumable before finally reaching the racks of the supermarket in the cities from which customers buy their food. If there were no farms in the rural areas, and they were right in the cities, there would not be enough space, and the crops would possibly even be vulnerable to pollution. Hence, these spaces outside of the city are needed for important farms to properly produce their goods, and therefore must be studied by those who seek to understand society’s important traits.

Cities are also often time governmental centers, and one important characteristic of governing a nation is expanding its land. However, some lands are not inhabitable by the ambitious nation, and the government must know about these kinds of locations before pursuing their interests. One such example is the Sentinel Island off the coast of India. This island is home to an indigenous group of people who have been isolated from the rest of humankind for thousands of years and are one of the few tribes in the world to have this accomplishment. No one in modern society knows much about their culture, language, or societal makeup, but the Indian government has attempted to expand into this country before, and every time they tried, the aboriginals would react belligerently, often throwing sticks and stones at any boats or helicopters that try to land on the shore. Eventually, the Indian government gave up on trying to expand to that island, and instead opted to let it stay untouched by the rest of the world. This in and of itself is an important characteristic of India’s society that has nothing at all to do with cities, yet is important to study to understand the certain boundaries of human expansion. Therefore, one should study outside territories closely to comprehend such boundaries.

On the other hand, some may claim that without cities, there would be nothing else and that cities are how ancient civilization started in the first place. One such example is the Indus Valley civilization, which first started in India and Pakistan. However, this argument does not support this claim because of how the society in this region during this time worked. The Indus Valley civilization saw the first of what is known today as the Caste system, a social ranking system that determines an individual’s status in society. The Brahmans at the apex of the social hierarchy were usually priests and high ranking officials in the government and were thus an integral part of the cities. However, looking further down in the system, there are the Vaishyas who are responsible for agriculture and farming. This is mentioned in the second paragraph, where it was already discussed that farms are a main source of food and supply for the citizens in the cities. Additionally, even though cities were a key factor in that time, people forget that many times, civilizations first started as farming villages before they transformed into cities buttressed by farms. Therefore, even with ancient civilizations, one must analyze external factors of the society to find key characteristics.

In conclusion, there are many supporting factors of societies that interact with cities that must be studied by those that wish to understand society’s key factors, because they affect how people within the city live, as well as how governments behave with foreign lands. In fact, understanding these different key elements of society can help those who are studying it to be able to further understand how the cities they are interested in work.