Topic: 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.

My Essay:
Societies of different cultures and nationalities share many different and important characteristics that give them collective identities – testaments to their historical narratives and developments. This can be seen in their languages which are derivative of their ancient interaction with the environment. Chinese characters, for example, resemble caricatures of animals and objects, leaving a footprint of the invention and evolution of the Chinese letters. However, major cities which they live reflect very little about their characteristics. Cities, in general, are usually utilitarian in manner without the residual of a societies’ heritage; they are chiefly influenced by the very similar economics and political forces which everyone in the world faces.
Major cities are often located right along the river banks and coast. Their proximity to water provide channels of transporting economic resources from hinterlands and facilitate trade between other major cities. This provides convenient access to resources which these favourably located cities are able to flourish. Many diverse cities such as Nanjing and London do not share similar history and culture. Yet, their very location at major rivers, Yangtze and the Thames, provided water transportation of timber and mined minerals during the ancient days. Coastal cities such as New York City and Shanghai, which are considered “western” and “eastern” cities respectively, have the largest number of shipping lines in the world. They were also important ports during the colonial period. These cities, being geographically and culturally far apart, are all located near the water which provide them with access to resources. Therefore, cities reflect more about geoeconomical factors instead of critical characteristics of a society.
Examining the urban designs of most major cities, there is not much differentiation between these cities in terms of their infrastructure blueprint. We can observe how buildings are planned and infrastructure connects with each other. These are indicative of the denizens’ propensity to more economical reasons, such as ease of accessing resources. New York City and Beijing, cities which are culturally dissimilar, share the same grid-like city networks which provide many access avenues and points for travelling and transportation for citizens. Such evidence support that, even with different societies, urban design steers towards effective infrastructure instead conforming to traditional influences. Again, this is also another reflection about cities’ inclination for effective economics more than what the statement claim.
There may be features which are distinct among major cities and probably lead one to assume a correlation between the residents’ characteristics and their cities. However, more often, cities that are different from others are by products of government policies and rationale. These governmental interventions would also most likely be adopted by others provided given the same circumstances as those faced by the former. Metropolitans such as Hong Kong and Singapore need to erect many high-rise apartments to overcome population density challenges. However, many European cities could do away with high-rise buildings so as to enjoy the preservation of aesthetic buildings such as the Duomo in Florence. Hong Kong and Singapore, given the same circumstances as these European cities, are more than happy to restrict the construction of high-rise apartments.
Societies share many features which differentiate themselves from each other. This features can also permeate in certain aspect of a community such as language. However, major cities do not exhibit strong enough relations to these characteristics. The design of cities’ main infrastructures and other attributes are primarily effected by economic and political factors which every population in the world faces. Hence, studying major cities would not bring about a deep understanding of the peoples’ important and unique characteristics.