Economy vs. Tradition vs. Political Will. Which one you prefer more?

In China, Many out-of-ways minorities living in the rural area surrounded by mountains have been suffering poverty centuries by centuries. 
However, as China started building railways and roads connected to those villages, minorities’ centuries poverty suddenly eliminated as their homelands able attract visitors and businesses coming in although villagers losing their tradition cultures , too. In USA, most people are directly or indirectly influenced by the Christian cultures whether you are religious or not. However, as more and more people get into the larger cities such as New York Cities, Miami, Los Angels, people are becoming more secularized.So the conclusions is: As individuals life quality improved or financial economy become more independent, the more secular an individual will be. Based on the same theory, if we keep our traditional cultures or belief will only making us stay poor, then being religious might be not a good option because our society is keep moving forward and we don’t.Although we might argue USA with very advance inland and airways transportation system, and USA residents and citizens able to own cars. However, I still believe building railways bring much more advantages than building more inland roads and opening more airways for airlines companies environmentally and socially.Do you agree?