In utilizing one term to cover all cities prior to the onset of industrialization (and many cities or sections of cities untouched by industrialization even today), I am following Gideon Sjoberg. In The Preindustrial City ( 1960), Sjoberg argues that despite their many differences, these historical and contemporary urban settlements were and are sufficiently similar in important respects to justify considering them as representative of a single constructed type. Type formulations, since they seek unity in diversity, always obscure variation. And it is certainly true that preindustrial cities, as historical entities, varied enormously. They varied, among other ways, in size, function, societal type in which they were embedded (Lenski, 1970), and relationship to their surrounding societies (see, for example, Pirenne, 1925). In the face of all this diversity, it is perhaps not surprising that Sjoberg's unitary concept has been subject to criticism (see, for example, Cox, 1969; Pahl, 1970). Although in adopting Sjoberg's usage, I am open to the same sort of criticism, I feel justified in doing so. Granted that for some purposes a more complex typology of cities would be more appropriate, with regard to the two characteristics in which I am interested-mixed public space use and overt heterogeneity of populace-all the cities of which I have any knowledge show a remarkable similarity.

XREF: Connects to Sjoberg's The Preindustrial City and the debate about typologies versus unitary concepts of preindustrial urbanism, relevant to urban sociology literature.

Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order a…, loc. 154