title: Mapping character types onto space: the urban-rural distinction in early statistical writings.
abstract: This article investigates the construction of urban/rural binary distinctions in 18th- and 19th-century social scientific literature, and in particular in the writings of the statistical societies in England. The 18th-century writers were primarily concerned with the spread of luxury, vice, and effeminacy among the upper social strata in large cities. Later on, statisticians began to focus on moral hazards among the urban working poor. These writings are significant in several respects: they contributed to the spatial mapping of moral character, played a role in the development of quantitative social scientific techniques, and foreshadowed later sociological debates over the nature and consequences of social evolution from simpler to more complex societies.
authors.affiliation: University of Alberta, Canada.
authors.forename: Zohreh
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Bayatrizi
mesh_terms: D003625:Data Collection / Q000266:history; D003710:Demography / Q000266:history; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D049671:History, 18th Century; D049672:History, 19th Century; D009014:Morals; D010550:Personal Space; D011156:Population Density; D011642:Publications / Q000266:history; D012923:Social Class / Q000266:history; D012942:Social Sciences / Q000193:education / Q000266:history; D012961:Sociology / Q000193:education / Q000266:history; D013037:Spatial Behavior; D013223:Statistics as Topic / Q000193:education / Q000266:history; D006113:United Kingdom / Q000208:ethnology; D014505:Urban Population / Q000266:history