Urban environments are like beaches the tide from the countryside flows in and out periodically.

One point- both extremes- extreme rural and extreme urban tend to have their own recurrent disasters. While scattered populations in rural setttings may preserve traditions they also can loose them due to lack of transfer across generations- not so many to receive. Additionally famine, economic hardship drive people from rural to urban.... Rural catastrophes due to fewer population tend to be more devastating-fewer people fewer survive.

In urban centers one finds other preasures-

As far as today in Baltimore there is nothing in the rural areas and what little we have is at expensive places in the urban centers

Conrad