ABSTRACT
From the very beginning, a long list of the writings of foreign observers bears witness to the fact that American cities are different from those of other countries. The successively transformed interrelations of interior and coast are crucial for understanding how Americans came to symbolize their cities. Only when one has acquired a sense of what is different about the course of American urbanization, can one properly apprehend Americans' symbolizations of their cities. Consider first some calculations—immensely revealing though necessarily crude—of some differences in the urbanization of certain countries. This particular set of figures yields a picture of no great historical depth, but it does highlight certain important variations between diverse kinds of urbanization. Towns were planted in the interior and performed innumerable and necessary services in opening up the surrounding and westward territory to farming and to further urbanization.
