“In the military sense of the term what after all is a street? A street is a defile in the city. A defile is a narrow pass through which troops can only move by narrowing their front, and therefore making themselves a good target for the enemy. A street is a defile the sides of which are constituted by the houses in the street.
A city is a huge maze of passes or glens formed by streets and lanes. Every difficulty that exists for the operation of regular troops in mountains is multiplied a hundredfold in a city.”
—James Connolly, “Street Fighting.”