Public Aid

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Abstract
This article examines public aid among strangers in public places—that is, instances of helping behavior among the unacquainted that are the right of citizens to expect and the duty of citizens to provide. Structurally, public aid encounters involve acts of petitioning and acts of granting; the aid that may be exchanged through such acts involves either material objects or the performance of particular tasks or services. The article explores various types and costs of public aid, the nature and implications of availability pools of grantors and petitioners, recurrent contingencies in the achievement of public aid, and some of the general contributions of public aid for social order and the quality of urban life.