How were both cities and rural areas important to writers during the Harlem Renaissance?

Because many of the Harlem Renaissance writers moved to the cities from rural areas, both settings became critical components of their work. For example, Toomer's book of poetry, stories, and a play, Cane, includes a section devoted entirely to characters in a rural Georgian setting, with images of trees and sugar cane. In the second section, the action takes place in Washington, D.C., and is filled with images of streets, nightclubs, houses, and theaters. Hurston set most of her stories in rural towns, in accordance with her lifelong effort to collect black rural folktales.

The move between rural and urban is also critical to many Renaissance novels. In McKay's Home to Harlem, the primary locale of the story is Harlem. But each of the novel's protagonists comes from someplace else: Jake is assumed to be originally from the rural South, and Ray is Haitian. Larsen's novel Quicksand follows a mixed race woman who travels from her job at a black southern college to various large cities around the world in search of a place she can truly call home. She ultimately ends up living in rural Alabama, feeling suffocated.