Modern urban space is organized to prevent activity pile-up

Evidence

This is not to suggest that nothing is supposed to go on in the modern city’s public space. A great many things are deemed appropriate. There is, however, a tendency to assign certain activities to certain spaces, thus avoiding the “pile-up” that was characteristic of the preindustrial city. Some of the more interesting struggles that go on in the contemporary urban settlement have their basis in this tendency toward the avoidance of pile-up. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 365

Categorization

• XREF: The pile-up principle reads against Jane Jacobs’ mixed-use street vitality — the very vibrancy cities now try to engineer back is what preindustrial cities had natively.
• SEED: Essay angle: what was lost when cities traded pile-up for zoning-style separation of functions — the sociology of streets vs. sidewalks.