most of the techniques for managing that kind of population density that we now take for granted—recycling centers, public-health departments, safe sewage removal—hadn’t been invented yet. And so the city itself improvised a response—an unplanned, organic response, to be sure, but at the same time a response that was precisely contoured to the community’s waste-removal needs. As the garbage and excrement grew, an underground market for refuse developed, with hooks into established trades.
