Size matters? Reviewing largeness and affirming smallness in urban research spatial imaginaries

Largeness, a latent quality in the spatial imaginaries of critical urban scholars, shapes what is considered valuable urban research. Notions of size are meaningful in inherited practices of delineating sites of inquiry and constructing fundamental urban hierarchies. A predominant focus on bigger cities and major theorisation has overlooked smaller sites and minor approaches in urban human geography. Smallness is explored as a disposition to examine urban places and processes free from the conflations of size and significance, and speculates three potential utilities: a critique of the primacy of largeness; egalitarian validity of urban sites; and diversification of subject and practice.