Writing Feedback / Essay about the direction of financing of government for culture (Issue Task GRE) [4]

Dear all,

I have a written a very first try on the GRE Issue task and I am trying to see what my current level is, and more importantly on which aspects I shall improve. I would be grateful if somebody could give me some tips. This is the task:

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.

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Cities provide an important concentration of cultural activity. Because of the bigger population, it is easier to gather enough people for a cultural event. This is significant, since some art forms attract a rather limited public and are therefore benefited by a higher population density. The relative proximity of the population in urban areas therefore offers the possibility to develop cultural projects on a level that is not possible in more secluded areas. It is apparent that this is an important reason why cultural traditions are developed more in the cities. In this discussion however, the claim does not logically follow from the reason.

The claim states that the government needs to ensure this cultural process, however I believe that the bigger number of people in urban areas already provide the resources to preserve and generate cultural traditions. Cities nowadays form a melting pot of all kinds of different cultural influences. This already naturally generates new cultural traditions, also without involvement of the financial support of governments. This is a natural process.

More secluded areas, however, might have more problems to finance their cultural inheritance. Currently in many countries young people leave their hometowns to try to luck in bigger cities. Large parts of the population thus adept themselves to the city life. The lack of young people in smaller towns threatens not only the existence of the town itself, but also the continuity of the cultural traditions. Following another example, cities in the Netherlands have been expanded during the last century, leading to small towns getting swallowed by the bigger cities surrounding it. This leads to loss of traditional feasts and dialects.

This leads to the conclusion that the government should give financial support to cultural outings in both cities and less urban areas. However, cities are more able to be self-sufficient in their cultural needs, where the smaller towns might need more support for their cultural development. Exactly, because it is primarily in cities that a nation's cultural traditions are preserved and generated, the government can better focus itself on preserving the more local initiatives.

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Thank you very much in advance,

Volks Tuintje