ABSTRACT
The modern city is the focus of much analysis by commentators of various types who point out the range and intensity of social and economic problems concentrated there. To a considerable extent such concentration is not surprising. The larger part of the population of most countries lives in a few large cities, and it follows that social and economic problems are likely to be concentrated there too. Thus many problems identified in cities cannot properly be termed problems of the city. They are in effect problems in the city, reflecting the concentration of population that results from the social and economic processes that also generate the problems. Other problems are more precisely of the city, in that they are consequences of population concentration rather than symptoms of it.
