Please rate my issue task. Thanks for your help!

[hell_abhi]

Question

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.

 

Response

 

Societies are often measured by the development of its major cities. But on second thought it seems that the idea in itself is quite wrong. It is not the city that makes up society, but the people. We can have a well-developed city, but with unhappy residents. We are also ignoring the fact that rural areas don't contribute to the culture, economy etc of a society.

By defining the characteristics of society by just studying its major cities handicaps the whole argument as it is simply ignoring the rural part of society. The rural part can have a major population, for example, in a country like India nearly 70% of the population dwell in villages. This case is true for the major of the developing countries. In fact, the rural parts contribute to society in a lot of ways, be it economy through farming, animal husbandry etc, culture by their local traditions, beliefs, festivals etc. By simply measuring a society by cities will be incomplete and wrong.

Even if we assume that the major part of the society consists of cities, then by simply studying it won't tell us the true color of the society. It is quite possible that majority of wealth is distributed among a small percentage of the population, and most of the people live under the poverty line. On average, it will seem that the city is doing great, but is it correct to say that when most of the population is struggling to even get two square meals? This inequality in the division of wealth is often the case in a lot of cities, which lead to the development of slum areas, and the condition of those areas are quite petty.

It is also possible that on average the people of the city are doing quite good, but still living in the city is problematic. The city can be quite polluted, which is often the cost of development by setting up factories and industries. A lot of cities in China is facing this issue, where people have enough wealth, but they lack pure air to breathe. Should wealth be the only criteria for defining a society? Even a city can be small and underdeveloped, but people living there could be happy and content with their life. Friendly neighbors, helpful people, good environment these factors affect the people on a day-to-day basis and should not be ignored.

To conclude, I would like to state that by just studying the cities for knowing the characteristics of a society, we are not doing justice to the conclusion of the study. As we are ignoring a major part of the population which reside in rural areas, and also by just studying a city we can't know the conditions of the residents.