In the course of the development of modern, urban individualism, the individual fell silent in the city. The street, the café, the department store, the railroad, bus, and underground became places of the gaze rather than scenes of discourse. When verbal connection between strangers in the modern city are difficult to sustain, the impulses of sympathy which individuals may feel in the city looking at the scene around them become in turn momentary—a second of response looking at snapshots of life.

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Richard Sennett, 1994