One of the characteristics of an industrially developed and technologically advanced society is that it tends to keep a rather large proportion of its population tied up in organizationally controlled work and play. The old floating populations, so characteristic of preindustrial and early industrial cities, are, in the modern city, largely eliminated. When enough people are pulled into schools and jobs, and when their few free hours are devoted to home and family or organized recreation, then very little time and very few people are left for hanging about.

Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order a…, loc. 382