Urbanites still read strangers by appearance despite spatial ordering, and err

Evidence

I suspect, although I have no supporting data, that despite the dominance of the spatial order in the modern city, many contemporary urbanites continue to rely rather heavily on appearance in making their identifications of surrounding strangers. In so doing, of course, they frequently err, and thus find the city a more difficult, more inhospitable milieu than might otherwise be the case. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 1213

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s frame on how city dwellers categorize strangers (Lofland’s chapter one) versus visual misreading — the flâneur as a case who reads then misreads.