Claim: Governments Must Ensure That Their Major Cities

Claim: Governments must ensure that their major cities receive the financial support they need in order to thrive.
Reason: It is primarily in cities that a nation's cultural traditions are preserved and generated.

Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim and the reason on which that claim is based.



With the reason of the utmost importance of cities to a nation’s cultural traditions, the statement conclude that governments should give preferential financing to major cities. However, that’s not a sound reason. A nation’s cultural traditions are generated from and preserved in its people’s lives. The overall status of people’s lives in a country determine which area of this country is primary in preserving and generating cultural traditions, and hence determine which deserve financial support priority.

In developed countries, the urbanization rates are high. Countries like Germany, United States and Japan all have urbanization rates above 70%. This means that city life dominate in these countries. Through long urbanization processes, their early cultural traditions have been well incorporated into city life. In capital city of Japan-Tokyo, there is a temple which is more than one thousand years old and is an important symbol of Japanese cultural traditions. During the country’s recent two hundred years’ development, this temple was well preserved and gradually expanded into a tourist destination. Now, it becomes a good place for presenting and propagating the Japanese culture.

Accompanying further economic and industrial development of cities, generation of cultural traditions also take place in cities of developed countries. Hollywood, a district in Los Angeles, has grown with the booming American film industry. This place is a productive center that creates film products propagating American spirits like Heroism and Liberty. These spirits are new elements integrated into cultural traditions and...