Distribution of the World's City Folks: A Study in Comparative Civilization

^E 'SSENTIAL to a distinction of urban from rural is our conception of population. Let us think of population as more or less nucleated into villages, towns, and cities. Urban and rural, city and country are one thing, not two things. Rural folk are only distinct from city folk in their sleep, as is pointed out below. Awake and at work they are tied up to the city in every act of life. They raise crops for city people and get their clothes from the city. They are employed by the city on works in the country, and they bank and invest their money in the cities. They go to the cities for material things and such spiritual things as books, music, and education. Any individual you please, if you pry into his affairs, is found to pass his life in touch with the city, to act with reference to the whims and wishes of city people. A lonely man in the woods, trapper, hunter, and fisher, buys his supplies in a village, sells his pelts to the city, and makes his best income by guiding city folks hunting and fishing. Out of the season he corresponds with them. He has them more or less in mind all the time.