Eh, I've lived in small towns and major cities. One isn't categorically better than the other, they're just different. Your values align better with city life, but that doesn't make other cultures inferior (nor are you superior to the people who prefer them). I certainly appreciate the diversity of larger cities and small towns certainly aren't for me, but I can also appreciate having a functional municipal government, low crime rates, low poverty rates, dramatically less antisocial behavior, strong values / decency / civility, a simpler way of life, etc.
All of those things might be true, but I think what they are meaning by ‘culturally inferior’ is that there is less variety in people, food, and activities. This is simply an inescapable fact of having fewer people. You won’t be able to find as wide a variety of food, or entertainment, or art in a place with fewer people. There simply aren’t enough people to sustain the same level of variety.
I agree that the word ‘superiority’ is loaded and probably not the appropriate term to use when talking about a culture. However, many people use the word ‘culture’ to mean countable things; if someone says a place ‘has a lot of culture’, often times they mean ‘there are many things to do’. In other words, a lot of options when you are choosing what you want to do for your day off, or your evening out.
Just imagine you are planning a night out with friends. As someone who grew up in a small town, our options were very limited. You could go to the movies, the bowling alley, or go to someone’s house. If you wanted dinner, there were only a few restaurants serving a small variety of cuisines. It would be impossible to do a different thing every night for more than a week or so.
In a big city, you could do something different every night and not run out of different things to do for years. You could eat a different restaurant every night, eating a completely different cuisine each time.
If you are simply counting things to do, a city is ‘superior’.
(not the OP, but somebody who's lived in both big cities and small towns and loved them both for different reasons)
I get what you're saying and agree to some degree. But at the same time, i think it's actually the last line ("if you're simply counting things to do") that I would personally quibble over as the sacred metric of what's better than the other.
Maybe some people don't really care about having ten gazillion different restaurants and would prefer at least three solid parks/hiking trails you can't get around some big cities? Maybe some folks would be more than happy to trade going to the theatres with having a home with 5+ acres to raise a chicken farm or other critters on, or if not that then at least the privacy and the minimal light pollution.
Some trades that people are willing to make kinda aren't so obvious.
I agree, which is why I mentioned the problem with the word ‘superior’, since there is no objective measure of what is a better culture. I was just trying to say their are objective differences.
Therea are good things about small towns, some of which you named, but some is idyllic fantasy:
> / decency / civility
That hasn't been my experience in small towns recently, unless you happen to fit in well with the people there. There's a highly aggressive paranoia and acting out.
> functional municipal government
They are almost powerless, IME. How small a town are you talking about?
