Preindustrial cities mixed extreme social strata and occupations openly

Evidence

To suggest that the preindustrial city was characterized by the overt heterogeneity of its populace is first of all to suggest that its populace was heterogeneous-overtly so or not. On that score, the sophisticated modern urbanite, viewing the past from the standpoint of his own cosmopolitan milieu, might be inclined to harbor some doubts. Yet we have already seen evidence of this diversity in the foregoing pages: great wealth and incredible poverty existing side by side, occupational differentiation of considerable complexity, health and disease rubbing shoulders in the street. Despite the historic fusing of church and state, then as now, cities were the breeding grounds for religious sectarianism, for revolts and talk of revolts. In the cities were the slaves and the freemen, women of “respectability” and their more adventurous sisters. In the cities (as we shall later see), the con man and the specialized thief came to maturity. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 230

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• XREF: Feeds the reader’s Simmel/Lofland contrast: this overt heterogeneity is what categorizing strangers emerged to manage.

Related

• Preindustrial cities were overtly and visibly socially heterogeneous (similarity 0.97)
• Preindustrial cities made social differences visually overt and legible (similarity 0.86)
• Preindustrial urban heterogeneity was overt and externally marked, unlike modern anonymity. (similarity 0.86)
• Preindustrial city residents encountered social diversity at their own doorstep (similarity 0.85)
• Modern cities exceed preindustrial ones in population heterogeneity (similarity 0.84)
• Preindustrial cities’ density limited class-residential segregation (similarity 0.84)
• Preindustrial Rome mixed all classes and uses in shared public space (similarity 0.84)
• Preindustrial cities segregated activities far less spatially than modern cities (similarity 0.83)
• Preindustrial urban heterogeneity differed by being overtly displayed, not by existing (similarity 0.82)
• Characterizations of city types describe tendencies, not uniform historical realities (similarity 0.82)
• Preindustrial city streets displayed suffering and mutilation at levels incomprehensible to moderns (similarity 0.82)
• Preindustrial urban diversity looks like disorder only because its ordering principle differs (similarity 0.82)
• Modern cities segregate activities spatially far more than preindustrial ones did (similarity 0.82)
• Class-based neighborhood segregation predates the modern city (similarity 0.81)
• Preindustrial cities mixed rich and poor dwellings within single quarters (similarity 0.81)