Dispersed-village residents misperceive their own isolation as cosmopolitan adventurousness.

Evidence

Ironically, inhabitants of dispersed urban villages often appear to conceive of themselves as cosmopolitans; as very much city people; as brave adventurers seeking out the thrills and dangers of urban public space. “Why would anyone want to live in San Francisco?” one such self-defined “cosmopolitan” asked me in disdain. “Why here in Berkeley we can go right from home to the bookstores and record shops and little boutiques and back again, and it’s all very convenient. We hardly ever have to leave the car.” — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 811

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

• XREF: Sharp counterpoint to the flâneur: this is self-deluding urbanity, the blasé attitude inverted — believing one has engaged the city by avoiding its public space entirely. Also resonates with Simmel’s distinction between spatial proximity and psychic distance.
• SEED: Essay angle: ‘The Cosmopolitan Illusion’ — how people in car-dependent enclaves misread routinized convenience as urban adventurousness, and what genuine urbanity actually requires.
• CANDY: The Berkeley quote — ‘We hardly ever have to leave the car’ — is a funny, tweetable encapsulation of self-deceived urbanity.

Related

• Dispersed-village dwellers misidentify themselves as cosmopolitan adventurers (similarity 0.97)
• Dispersed-village dwellers know only car-routed street access, not public space itself. (similarity 0.86)
• Dispersed-village dwellers know streets only as auto corridors to private spaces (similarity 0.81)
• Modern urbanites create dispersed villages linking private spaces by car (similarity 0.79)