▶ Your Answer :
Considering humanity, preserving and generating
cultural traditions are important when it comes to make related decision,
especially for financial concerns. That is probably why the author argues that governments
must allocate more money to major cities; however, the argument is not cogent because
it overlooks following important factors: mid-sized cities’ cultural values,
suburban areas’ historical significance, and the importance of balanced
development across the nation.
To begin with, the financial support should be made
equally, or even more, toward small or mid-sized cities according to the
degrees of the cities’ culturally contributable aspects. For example, even
though Oklahoma City is one of the mid-sized cities, in consideration of the
population, the city is well known for native American culture and tradition via
its diverse and invaluable historical artifacts, legends, and histories. In
other words, low number of people does not mean less cultural values. If
governments only support major cities financially with the argument’s reason,
this type of mid-sized cities’ cultural assets might be behind the preservation
efforts.
In addition to recognizing the cultural values of
suburban areas, the governments must consider that they need to conserve local
cities’ historical and archaeological significances. Several cities that are
geographically restricted, by mountains or lakes, can be examples. In South
Korea, for instance, southeastern area has different accent in their everyday
use language compared to the nation’s capital city, Seoul. This phenomenon
plays a significant role in researching ancient Korean language’s characteristics
since the southeastern accent still bear the 15th century’s unique
intonation and supra-segmental properties. This is why abundant historians,
archaeologists, and, linguists argue that more allocations should be made for
local areas to preserve and research the historical heritages.
Given these two points, if the financial decision will
be made in favor of major cities, it will be obvious to see the developmental
gap between big cities and small cities become worse and worse. What we would
like to pursue is mutual and sustainable improvements. Therefore, if the governments
ignore these local cities’ cultural importance, the one-sided determination
will proscribe local’s less development.
In sum, in order to preserve and foster our cultural
and traditional heritages, when it comes to decide financial supports, governments
must consider not only city sizes, but also the hidden factors in small and
mid-sized cities, which include, but are not limited to: local’s traditional
values that may be more valuable than major cities’, mid-sized cities’
historical and archaeological significance, and the importance of supporting
balanced developments as a whole. Thus, governments must aggregate more data
about those factors, and allocate appropriate amounts of money to both major
and minor cities. |