Urban competence requires judging one’s capacity to handle the unanticipated

Evidence

So, too, every city dweller knows that there may be exceptions to his generalized understandings; that he may sometime go to a place that is something other than what he expected. To learn where to go, then, he must learn to judge how well he can handle the unanticipated. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 628

Categorization

• QUESTION: What happens when this judgment fails — the ‘uncomfortable time’ — could be the pivot to Cole’s unreliable observer; worth tracing.