Do big cities represent a society?

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.

To analyze the major characteristics of a society it is important to study the interactions between different individuals. Major cities provide a rich environment for the interaction of people in a community and are imperative in the analysis of a society's important characteristics, but they may not provide the whole picture or represent all strata of people in a society.

It has been shown scientifically that large societies function more effectively by assigning different roles to different people. The functions of people in different economic and social classes differ. Similar communities gather themselves and hence different geographic regions consist of people with different attitudes and social behavior. Some of these regions may be large, while others may be small and secluded. These communities share basic attitudes and depend on each other for development and survival and hence are part of the same society. But to analyze the important characteristics of the society as a whole one cannot choose to focus on only the major cities. Many times small and secluded communities in a society provide deep insight into the important characteristics of a society.

 Consider for example the Indian society. The people in the Indian sub-continent share many values, attitudes and cultural traits. Hence, they can be classified as a single society. But to discern the important features of an Indian society it would be a ludicrous mistake to look at only the geographically and economically big cities like Mumbai and Delhi. Analyzing the behaviour of people in these cities one may conclude that Indians are extravagant people who spend their time roaming in malls and in late night rave parties, where men and women enjoy the same freedoms and share equal responsibilities. Stark contrast in the attitudes and behaviours of communities can be observed by bringing to light the examples of "Khaps" and "panchayats" in the Indian villages. Recently a "panchayat" in a small village near New Delhi was in the news for establishing a rule that prevented women from going out alone after sunset. These incidents point out the vast difference in the functioning of societies in large and small cities. These differences cannot be explained by the economic disparity alone. Many Indians would agree that large cities and metros represent singularities in social behaviours and attitudes.

The diversity in different societies varies by large factors. In a small and homogenous society it may be sufficient to look at only the major cities and draw conclusions about the characteristics of the whole society, but in large and diverse societies it would be fallacious to draw any conclusion from the studies conducted in large cities only.  For some societies, it may even be true that large cities represent singularities in social attitudes and behaviors and hence must be discarded as outliers in a scientific study.