Big Cities Vs Small Towns Cultural Studies Essay

Big Cities Vs Small Towns Cultural Studies Essay When speaking to an individual of experience, possibly an explorer or an elder, someone may be informed about the way people from particular towns behave. Such as, ‘people from big cities are always in rush’ or ‘citizens from smaller towns are friendlier’. As John Jake states, â€Å"The big city and small town have been stereotyped in the American experience as being at opposite ends of an imagined social gradient–the former more a place of cold impersonality in social relations and the latter more a place of warm personalized community. Assumptions about urban-based â€Å"mass society† largely blinded Americans through the twentieth century to the existence of, and importance of, locality-based community in big cities. Early in the century, most urban Americans emigrated from rural and small town circumstances, bringing to the nation’s cities strong rural and small town proclivities at neighboring. Both central city working-class neig hborhoods and affluent suburbs mirrored the small town.†(Jakle,1) But, for someone born, raised and living in that small town, these differences may seem clearly an opinion, and perhaps some distinctions are. So why, then do so many people prefer one type of life style over the other? Specific characteristics such as economics, population, crime rate, traffic, city planning and also architecture, differentiate one region from the next. In order to form an opinion, one must analyze two towns on opposing ends of the spectrum. By comparing two towns: a small town, and also a busy suburb, the differences in the characteristics of citizens, the city, and their daily life, make it seem as though small towns and big cities are practically from different countries. As John Jake confirms, â€Å"America’s small towns and big cities occupy opposite ends of an urban spectrum. Early in the twentieth century, commentators on American life clearly differentiated towns and cities as s ocially different–the two kinds of place sustaining very different ways of life.†(Jakle,1) In a small town, at first one might notice the appearance. It is not generally uncommon to see an assorted crew of soiled young children come running into the neighborhood supermarket without shirts or shoes and buy candy. The cashier, rather than ushering the inadequately clothed children out the door, asks them how their parents have been, they just so happen to live next door. This sort of incident would not go over so well in a big city. The same young children would have been asked to leave and later admonished by their parents for going out in public looking so disarrayed. For example, in a Clockwork Orange a young fifteen-year-old boy known only by the name of Alex is the antihero. Alex and his three â€Å"droogs† are a gang of youngsters who goes around in the dangerous streets of London, fighting, raping, pillaging, and all the basic doings generally associated wit h anarchy. In a small town, this would be less likely to happen. Overalls, dirty jeans and hats are not uncommon apparel for citizens out running errands and are almost a necessity for the distinguished elderly man. Aside from the readily differences, citizens of small towns seem to have contrasting personality traits as well. Take the scene of a crowded store during the holidays, for instance. In a busy, crowded big city, a shopper with a cart overflowing with items in the checkout lane would simply be focused on checking out and planning on where they need to go next. However in a small sleepy town, that same shopper may check to see if the person just behind them, with only a couple of items, might want to go ahead. Then, possibly even strike up a conversation with a total stranger. As John Jake explains, † To Simmel, large cities overloaded residents with social stimuli, producing in people defensive behaviors both patterned and regularized. The urban personality was reser ved and detached. Contact person-to-person in the city might be face-to-face, but even those encounters tended to the impersonal, the superficial, and the transitory (Wirth 1938). The metropolis was seen as a mass of separate individuals variously practicing social avoidance, especially in public spaces. City streets were seen as cold and unfriendly (Gross 1965). Small towns, on the other hand, with limited populations interacting in limited geographical areas, tended not to produce social overload. There, people could personalize relationships, even the cursory spontaneities of chance encounter in public space. Small town streets were warm and friendly. The idealized small town was likened to a nurturing extended family, whereas the city was made out to be a place of alienated individuals (Smith 1966).†(Jakle,1) Another strange exception happens to be a relative disregard for locking the doors at night or even at all. This such behavior is unheard of in the big cities of larg er towns. In small towns neighbors have a tendency to look out for the good of the neighborhood, and are always cautious, but with such low crime occurrences, such preventative measures as door-locking are not required.