Who Are Cities For, Anyway?

Some interesting experiments around transportation cropped up lately:

In one, a study of big art projects painted on the streets cut down on "incidents" involving drivers and pedestrians. In another, a state called Utah lowered the legal limit for drunk driving while offering more ways for the intoxicated inhabitants of the desert to get home. The result: fewer drunk driving crashes, even as the state sold more booze.

This got us thinking: what's it look like when we design cities for the people we have, rather than the people we claim to want?

What if we go ahead and accept human faults and set up systems to adapt, rather than just punishing anybody who doesn't have the right buckles on their Puritan shoes?

Maybe we get better education or drug policy ... or maybe society itself comes crashing down. (Depends who you ask.)

Buckle your thinking shoes -- or you know what? Don't buckle anything if you don't got buckles. But do, for the love of God, think along with us as with try to find our flawed yet delightful selves.

JOURNOS is produced by Heather "Eagle Ears Wilson.

 

NOTES

More on Bloomberg's Asphalt Art Initiative // NYT digs into the arts groups behind the asphalt // Richmond, VA, paints the streets