City size creates a peculiar condition of mutual personal anonymity

Evidence

But in one respect, at least, the city is not like other kinds of pl.aces. The city, because of its size, is the locus of a peculiar social situation: the people to be found within its boundaries at any given moment know nothing personally about the vast majority of others with whom they share this space. Each knows of the aggregate existence of all these others, of course, but he does not know of their individual existence: he does not know their names or their personal histories or their hopes or preferences or fears. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 36

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the core concept of the book: the city as world of strangers, where aggregate knowledge of others coexists with ignorance of any individual.
• XREF: This is the foundational claim the reader is using to interrogate Simmel’s blasé attitude and Lofland’s stranger-categorization schemes.