中国的城市与乡村之间历来就没有一条不可逾越的鸿沟。古代的城乡关系正如马克思所说的那样,处于一种“无差别的统一”状态之中,到了近代虽然有所变化,但城乡关系仍然十分微妙。一方面,以牺牲传统农业文明为代价的城市化与城市近代化使城市和乡村的对立状态初露端倪;一方面,近代都市文明的诸多先天缺陷又使城市和乡村之间始终保持着某种传统的默契。这一矛盾关系格局从根本上制约着城市文化的总体格局和发展走向。其中最突出之点便是始终没有建立纯粹的独立的具有近代形态的都市文化。在以农业文明为主要的内涵的区域文化氛围中,中国近代城市文化与乡村文化保持着既同构又异质,既认同又超越,既吸纳又辐射的矛盾关系。因此,中国的城市文化勿宁说是乡土文化的对立物, There has never been an insurmountable gap between cities and villages in China. The ancient urban-rural relations, as Marx put it, are in a state of “undifferentiated unity.” Although the changes in modern times have changed, the relationship between urban and rural areas remains subtle. On the one hand, the urbanization and urban modernization at the expense of the traditional agricultural civilization have begun to reveal the antagonism between urban and rural areas; on the one hand, the innate defects of modern urban civilization have kept the urban and rural areas always maintaining a certain Traditional tacit agreement. This pattern of contradictions fundamentally restricts the overall pattern and development trend of urban culture. One of the most prominent points is that there has never been a purely independent metropolitan culture with modern forms. In the regional cultural atmosphere with the main content of agricultural civilization, the urban culture and rural culture in modern China maintain the contradictory relations of both isomorphism and heterogeneity, both agree and surpass, absorb and radiate. Therefore, the urban culture in China is more than just the opposite of local culture,