Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/558

 544 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

of the former type. The totemic clan, the commercial company, the universal church, are of the second. To be sure even the latter are not without attachment to a certain point of space, the totemic center, the community seat, or holy city. But they always overflow its bounds, and it serves them as a center only.

The city is a community of the former class. But within that class itself it occupies a special place. And in this respect it is the second characteristic which makes it possible to distinguish it from other communities of the same type. All have a localiza- tion sufficiently clearly defined. But that localization varies in extent, the community varies in dispersion and consequently the density of the social elements, men and things, varies. An Indian or Eskimo tribe occupies an enormous territory, relative to the number of its members. The city, on the contrary, is a com- munity which, in relation to its size — or, if preferred, in relation to the number of its human elements — occupies an especially lim- ited area.^^ But this is a distinction merely of degree, exclusive only in that it sets off the city, an element within a social type, from other communities of the same kind. However, it is not the second characteristic which distinguishes it from other general types of establishment, and that is why we characterize it as secondary. It can not be truly said what is the minimum limit of space that will allow the community which occupies it to be called a city. This is not an absolute but a relative matter, which varies according to the population of the city. There is between the city and the more dispersed community of the same type a whole series of intermediary establishments. Such a city as Paris occupies a larger area than a small community which, how- ever, is not a city. But because of its enormous population it constitutes a compact conglomerate of social groups, and that is sufficient.

ber of social groups, as the intertribal markets (fairs), may be regarded as a temporary city. There are also seasonal "cities" and on the other hand the market often presents morphological characteristics analogous to those of the "city." It is frequently fortified even. But we must not, because of that, say with M. Pirenne that all cities spring from markets. The market is only a type of the city, characterized by periodicity and a certain function.
 * Consequently, a market (ntarchS), from its function of uniting a num-