There are no gas lines beneath Amman, meaning if you use it to cook (as many restaurants do) then you’ll be going through many-a-tankful. This street-based storage pattern is a compromise in space (to keep from having to line up all the tanks along the sidewalk or place them in the street and block cars) and time/effort (the drivers of the gas trucks that ply Amman’s streets exchanging empty tanks for full ones benefit from having the empties conveniently situated on the street, rather than having to dash inside the restaurant and form a bucket-brigade of sorts to get empties out the door and on to their truck). I imagine this distinctive storage form also acts as a convenient identifier to gas truck drivers plying the streets in search of empty tanks (although this one-minute video pretty much captures the business model – and yes, all of the trucks play the same song). There has been much reflection on the uniformity of said song, and even apparently an art project devoted to temporarily changing it.