Urban identification shifted from appearance clues to spatial location

Evidence

In the preindustrial city the problem of identifying strangers was largely solved by an ordering of the populace such that appearances provided fairly accurate clues to identities. In the confusion and chaos of the early industrial city, however, that solution became increasingly untenable. Appearential clues might still be used, of course, but their reliability could not be counted upon. … That order, as previously indicated, is spatial. In the great sprawling cities of the twentieth century, location, not appearance, becomes the major key to identification. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 351

The modern urbanite, then, in contrast to his preindustrial counterpart, primarily uses location rather than appearance to identify the strange others who surround him. In the preindustrial city, space was chaotic, appearances were ordered. In the modern city, appearances are chaotic, space is ordered. In the preindustrial city, a man was what he wore. In the modern city, a man is where he stands. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 459

Categorization

• XREF: Directly bridges to Simmel’s blasé attitude and the urban anonymity theme this reader is tracing across Lofland, Simmel, and Cole.
• DEFINE: Contrasts the preindustrial appearance-based order with the modern spatial order — the core framework of the book.
• ADDENDUM: The inverted pair ‘appearances ordered/space chaotic’ vs ‘appearances chaotic/space ordered’ is the material for the grafting argument: systems of order swap which dimension carries cognitive load.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 351; Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 459