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This paper first reviews the descriptions and structural explanations for variations, in urban population densities in the United States over several decades. The research reviewed focuses on shifts in the technology and economics of travel as being the major influences on urban density distributions. These variables appear to be somewhat less adequate as explanations of the process in recent decades. After reviewing these findings and suggesting several research questions, we attempt to assess the evidence relating variations in population density to several other aspects of human behavior. A review of the research relating high population densities to various "social pathologies" indicates that little of the variance in rates of these pathologies can be attributed to density independently of other social structural variables. Some important consequences of population density have been reported, however, and possible research directions are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Estimates of both Colonial Period population sizes and densities as of about 1689 for areas of eight to eighty square miles in Plymouth and Rhode Island colonies are possible by coordinating local records and by recognizing that the Bristol estimates suggest 1) smaller populations for Rhode Island and especially its chief Colonial center, Newport, than have been assumed, and 2) a kind of mathematical ordering of population densities in the region as a whole. Should the ratios prove to be applicable outside the Narragansett region, it may be possible to estimate population of the many other places whose size of militia and date of settlement are known. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]