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 deve

Today when more than 50 per cent of the planet's population live in urban areas, it seems that in order to understand the most crucial facets of a society, we should carefully scrutinize its main cities. However, does this way give a comprehensive understanding of a society? The answer is "no" due to the fact that megalopolises reflect today's situation but to obtain the complete picture we need to learn the origins of today and thus we need study the society's rural areas as well. In other words, to understand a society we need study both country and urban areas to get the full image of its past, today and perhaps tomorrow.

First of all, today's major cities are reflections of the contemporary society its mores, system of values and social laws. Urban areas due their specific and unique characteristics mirror many of current social processes positive and negative. For instance, studying such megacity as Moscow may reveal many important characteristic of Russian society its structure, interaction between classes and many others, look at the fancy center of the city with its rich and opulent buildings and landmarks and at its outskirts with its ghetto which consists of ugly block of flats and grey and dirty streets. We may learn from this that the society has a problem due to a huge gap between poor and wealthy public. Moreover, we may look at an urban families and we may learn than males and females have distinct roles in family's life. All of these examples give us a current picture of the society but in order to understand it completely we need to understand the roots and origins of these mores.

To do so, we need to take a closer look at the rural areas where everything started. Today's urban dwellers or their predecessors used to live in the country side and thus they take with them their customs and traditions which than were adapted to city's life. For instance, today's roles men and women in Russian society were forged hundreds of years ago in the country side when men had to do a heavy work and women had to take care about home and children. A man was an indispensable source of food and money and woman was a source of home's comfort. In past conditions the separation or roles was a necessity. Thus the roots of today's traditions are situated in the our rural past.

In conclusion, studying of major cities may give a comprehensive perception of today's situation but it cannot reveal the origins of it and in order to acquire a full picture we need to study rural area as well, the place where our past is preserved. Studying of both urban and rural life may give a comprehensive understanding of important facts of a society.