Extreme physical proximity paradoxically heightens felt mental distance in big cities.

Evidence

For the reciprocal reserve and indifference and the intellectual life conditions of large circles are never felt more strongly by the individual in their impact upon his independence than in the thickest crowd of the big city. This is because the bodily proximity and narrowness of space makes the mental distance only the more visible. — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 9871

Categorization

• XREF: The visible mental distance amid bodily closeness maps to Raskolnikov both surrounded by and alienated from the crowd of Petersburg.