Traveling reflections 4: Get off the curb

Why is it so hard to wait on a curb in New York City? It's just not easy there to resist the urge to stand in the street while waiting to cross it.

The sightlines are not appreciably worse in New York than elsewhere. Those couple steps don't offer even the plausible illusion of getting anywhere faster. And those who wait in the street in New York wait on the curb in the cities to which they travel or return.

The crowds? There're more people off the curb than on, everyone wedged into a small margin of gutter closely policed by yellow cabs. Still you have to do it, it gets in the bones. An expression of the New Yorker's impatience? Sounds closer to the truth, but doesn't account for tourists; and by this explanation I'd expect more street standing in Mediterranean or Asian cities, sun and Buddha notwithstanding. Whatever draws people into this curb-defying culture when in New York binds this culture to New York, so that it makes no sense, has no appeal elsewhere.

What is this ethos, where does it come from? How can such distinct behavior at once be so place-specific and so automatic, so pointless and so insistent, so mundane and so irresistible?