Privacy in the City

Today I want to talk about something that I think gets misunderstood somewhat in a lot of discourse over urban density: the question of privacy. How much do you experience privacy in a big, dense city versus a smaller one or a town or rural area?Well, that's gonna depend on how you define privacy. 1. Big City SurveillanceLet's start with the obvious: if your interest is not appearing on CCTV, traffic cameras, or other forms of state or corporate surveillance, you'll probably be on camera more in a big city.There are more traffic cameras, gun cameras (in the US at least), private and government CCTV, etc. in denser places, for obvious reasons. But at the same time: there may also be more places that don't have those things, as a percentage. If the only place I can shop for groceries is driving to Walmart, well, I know Walmart has me on CCTV. My local grocery may or may not; the corner store may or may not; the farmers market probably doesn't, depending on what city I'm in. But if those…