It is primarily in cities that a nation's cultural traditions are generated and preserved

Somebody may disagree with this idea by asking that whether all the cultural traditions are very old and have long histories and whether villages are mostly older than cities？Thus, traditions must primarily be generated in old villages where has ancient wooden houses rather than in modern cities where has large commercial business district and tall concrete towers. Admittedly, the history of cities is shorter than that of villages, but it is already long enough for cities to produce long history and ancient civilizations, such as the ancient city of Maya. Furthermore, the cities' more energetic growth compared with the villages' depression contributes to its future cultural prosperity.

There is no denying that some cultural traditions are generated and preserved better in non-urban areas than in cities. First example is the rural gastronomy. Many citizens complain that the traditional handmade moon cakes brought by grandmother from countryside is better than any cake could be found in urban bakeries. Another example is that during the Water-splashing Festival, many white collars fly hundreds of miles from Beijing to a small village Dai to experience the Water Carnival in there, as this activity is generated and well-preserved in Dai. Apart from the rural gastronomy and Water-splashing festival, the traditional farming technologies are generated and developed most in rural areas. Everyday peasants practice farming activities inherited from ancestors. In contrast, IT workers who working on the Artificial Intelligence seem like have nothing to do with the traditional culture. All these examples give evidences that some cultural traditions are preserved better in rural areas than in urban areas.

However, the discoveries listed above do not weaken this argument. Admittedly rural areas have some traditional activities, but in fact, cities have generated much more cultural traditions than rural areas. This is because that most activities in villages relate only to agriculture, thus the cultural traditions in there connect closely to eating and drinking. However, in cities people practice a various range of non-agricultural activities, such as singing, dancing, acting, drawing and etc. As a result, these non-agriculture activities produce many extraordinary results which made China one of the four ancient civilizations.

Chinese traditional arts consist of four important parts: music, chess, poem and painting. Beijing opera, the symbol of Chinese music, was born as an entertainment activity for royal families. Playing chess, considered as an intellectual training for nobles and aristocrats in ancient time. Poems of dynasty Tang, essays of dynasty Song are written mostly by the powerful political figures. In history, painting was used as a tool to help emperor to select wives. These four forms of traditional art were practiced mostly by the upper class in their times, and upper classes, who do not practice the agricultural activities, live in cities. Thus, these four representative activities of Chinese art are generated and developed in cities, rather than in villages, where the food demands came at first than the aesthetic needs.

Through analyzing the evidences presented above, it seems like that villages and cities both play an important role in cultural tradition's creation and preservation, as one is responsible to the agricultural tradition and another is about the non-agricultural tradition. However, cities have an overwhelming advantage than rural areas in today. China's urbanization process has already achieved 60 percent. This means that most Chinese people are living in cities. More than 700 million people are creating new culture, forming new social consensus and defining new festival costumes. For example, the square dancing invented by Chinese Auntie (a group of urban retired housewives) has set off a new mode of entertainment. With the increase of numbers of single people in mega cities, the day of 11.11 has become the Single’s day. Citizens in today are creating new cultural symbols, which would be considered as the cultural traditions in future people's eye. All in all, cities have more potentiality than villages in creation of new cultures.
According to Maslow's human need theory, the physical need, for food and for water, is people’s basic need. Rural cultural tradition relates most to this part. Except this part, the other four needs are mostly practiced in cities. In cities, ancient people practice non-agriculture activities, and contemporary people are creating new ones.