In traditional societies most people lived in bands or in villages, their geographic horizons usually defined by how far one could walk in a day. Such familiar environments were largely without strangers. Passing migrants, gypsies, tinkers, charlatans and traders were noteworthy interruptions in biographies filled with known others, mostly family and neighbours. Even in courtly society unknown outsiders were something of a novelty. One thinks of the stir caused by the arrival of a company of travelling players in Shakespeare's Hamlet. By contrast, much of lived experience in modern societies takes place in the close physical presence of strangers. Urbanization and the evolution of affordable technologies for daily travel have led to the increased social densities and circulations that see strangers thrown against each other. Of course, at home and at work the stranger is relatively absent. Yet out in public the situation is very different.

Remarkably little objective information is known about our social connectedness with, beliefs about, or quality of interactions among those anonymous people with whom we must share public space. Still, respondents to surveys seem to be confident in claiming that things have gone to the dogs and are getting worse. The Public Agenda (2002) survey of 2001 found 79 per cent of American respondents saying that ‘lack of respect and courtesy is a serious problem for our society’, and 73 per cent believing that there was more respect around in the past. These impressions are generally supported rather than critiqued in the academic literature.