Population size alone transforms personal worlds into stranger worlds

Evidence

Let me emphasize that this apparent definitional reliance on sheer numbers does not gainsay my appreciation of the fact that a “city” is not merely a large settlement. As Louis Wirth (1964) early pointed out and as many others have since emphasized, size is merely one among numerous elements, the constellation of which creates that unique phenomenon we designate as a city. Concerned as I am here, however, with the transformation of a world of personally-known others into a world of strangers, the numerical increase of a settlement’s population becomes particularly crucial. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 1060

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies why the author privileges size as the pivotal variable for stranger-density specifically, despite Wirth’s broader critique.