City vs Rural: Value Over Blood

The biggest difference between cities and rural areas is that the latter values blood ties, while the former values utilitarian worth. Blood ties form a stable structure; utilitarian worth does not.

Land in rural areas is allocated according to lineage, which is why your surname and gender matter so much there.

The thing is, in a city, you don't need decades to watch original residents get pushed out by money—to the outskirts or even away entirely—while the downtown area fills with newcomers who've made their wealth elsewhere.

If original residents never leave, the area simply declines and becomes an old town. Capital will lift up a new district instead, and wherever the nouveau riche settle becomes the center—that's how the downtown core shifts.

That's the essence of a city: it constantly generates new technologies and new directions, endlessly recombining resources. No method can let you sustain for long the kind of centuries-old security you find in rural life.