Temporal and structural limits prevented large settlements from clustering before industrialization.

Evidence

A settlement which reached a population of 8,000 or more was likely to dominate a large hinterland, precluding the growth of similar-size settlements nearby. It thus had no competition in attracting immigrants and visitors, and temporal limitations to knowing could play their part. London, in the twelfth century, for example, had an estimated population of between 20,000 and 35,000 (Comhaire and Cahnman, 1962), by today’s jaundiced standards a mere village-hardly worth going out of one’s way to see. But to a visitor of the period, it appeared quite a metropolis indeed and well worth the time and trouble it took to get there (Holmes, 1966). — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 81

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

Related

• Historically, settled places felt like cities at far smaller sizes than today’s standards (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Preindustrial cities appear disordered only because their ordering principle differs from ours #expands (0.30) — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 174