Traditional Middle Eastern cities worked by sliding degrees of access, not fixed public-private boundaries

Evidence

Yet it is also the case that some preindustrial cities-especially if their elites were wealthy, “civic-minded,” or desirous of propitiating as well as coercing the masses-did manage to set aside certain public spaces for certain public activities in what we would consider a very modern manner. Rome is the primary example, with its Coliseum, its Circus Maximus, its theaters, its baths. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 276 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Middle Eastern cities lacked the observer-object separation Europeans expected.; Traditional Middle Eastern towns never separated materiality from meaning.; Middle Eastern towns built by spacing rather than by structures in space — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 186 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Some preindustrial cities set aside dedicated spaces for specific activities #complicates (0.72) — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 276