[wenc]

If you lived in a high place (Denver), you will find it different from a flat lowland (Chicago).

Also in Rio, how high you live can be a marker depending on which part of town you are. Favelas are on hills, whereas wealthy people in Zona Sul live down the hill closer to the beaches.

[shoxidizer]

It's not that altitude isn't important, it's that it's basically determined by latitude and longitude (and time). Cultures don't exist directly above or below each other, especially not at the national scale being discussed here, and even at the micro scale, differences within a single high rise are presumably minor compared to the same distance laterally.