Retitled 'City of the Absent' in collected editions of the series.
Between 1841 and 1901, the population of the City shrank from 123,000 to 27,000. In the present article Dickens offers a companion piece to his paper of 5 May 1860 on deserted churches in the City of London (see 'City of London Churches'): both explore the phenomenon now known to social scientists as depopulation of the urban core.
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