Short thread: The "urban prestige effect." For whatever reason, cities, urbanism (and social complexity) are seen as realms of prestige by some archaeologists. This leads them to think that if they can call their sites "urban", that is some kind of positive result. 1/ 
2/ But how does this help anybody? It make comparative analysis more difficult, since the category "urban settlement" now includes smaller or simpler sites. Now, there is nothing wrong with using "urban" concepts to analyze "non-urban" settlements. I do this a lot.
3/ But the urban prestige effect is applied without reference to theory or detailed comparative evidence; the urban nature is asserted with respect to some vague or idiosyncratic definition. So, I was thinking how clever I am to recognize this and write about it.
4/ I talk about it in #PastUrbanLife. But then I saw a quote from my intellectual ancestor, V. Gordon Childe. This is from an editorial in Antiquity from 1957:
5/ “The use of the terms ‘civilization’, ‘city’, ‘town’, by Kenyon (Antiquity 30, 192), Wheeler (ibid,. 132-34) and the Editor himself (ibid., 129) in reference to neolithic Jericho, in no wise enhances the transcendent significance of the site. ...
6/ ... It just deprives prehistorians of convenient terms for giving expression to economic and sociological distinctions that can be recognized in the gross material data provide by dirt archaeology.” (Childe 1957:36)
7/7 A few points. There is not a single domain of "the urban" for the past. There were many urban traditions, with vastly different traits. Your definition of city or urban should be dictated by your research question, and justified by theory and comparative data.
As long as I'm being all scholarly and historical, I should note Robin Osborne's remarks in 2005: "What we need is a definition which raises and illuminates issues that we want to answer.” Paper on urban sprawl in Osborne & Barry Cunliffe, eds. Proc. British Academy, v. 126
