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.

The extent to which studying the major cities of a society can tell us about its characteristics depends on whether the majority of the society in question lives in the major cities. The major cities of any civilization do not exist alone and must be supported by a large population of workers, farmers, and others. If this supporting population largely lives outside the major cities, then the city life can be very uncharacteristic of the general life of its supporting population, even to the extent of having a markedly different culture or religious belief. For example, if we were to study the city of Alexandria in the first or second century BC as a window to the Egyptian culture of the time, we might erroneously come to the conclusion that Egyptian culture is much more Greek than it was-- But since the majority of Egyptians would live in small towns scattered along the banks of the Nile studying the major city of the time would not tell us enough abour their life.

Even when there is no significant religious or cultural difference between the city and where its supporting population lives, throughout history major cities have mostly been the domain of the wealthy and the powerful: as a result, one can conclude that lush gardens or beautiful statues were commonplace among the majority of the population when they were not. This does not mean that such cities are useless for studying a society-- on the contrary, what the wealthy acquire will most likely display what this society values or the most. One can infer from the churches of Italy or Spain that the societies behind them not only highly valued their religion but that they valued realistic art depictions of history-- This can be contrasted with Ancient Japan or Ancient Egypt, where realistic art was never as popular as it was in Medieval Europe.

However, in recent times, there has been a strong tendency of rural populations towards migration to major cities as agriculture becomes less and less profitable compared to industry, trade, or other things. Such societies would show their most important characteristics in the major cities because the majority of the population is now in the major cities and would show their characteristics and culture in its architecture, street life, books, and other ways of cultural expression. In conclusion: when the majority of the supporting population of a city lives there their most important characteristics are expressed in the city, but when said population largely lives elsewhere the city life becomes a murky and unreliable indicator of their cultural and religious beliefs or social life.