Bumpy roads

Bumpy roads are always bad, right? Cars get damaged more easily; it’s slower to bike, walk, or drive on; dust is easily stirred up by the wind or passing cars; you can’t just shut your mind off and wander because that large hole might just make you kiss the ground, hard.

But bumpy roads also save lives.

The back roads (little roads that branch off main roads, like the one I live on) are so bumpy, it forces the cars to slow down. It’s like having speed bumps without even really planning or building them. Children play on these roads because it’s where people live. From the way people drive here on flat roads (i.e. really fast and with a complete disregard for any person or vehicle smaller than yours) I don’t know how many kids have been saved from being run over by a car because of these bumpy roads.

So what if all the roads in the city where paved flat? It would be a good development initiative, right? Maybe, though, on the flip side, many communities would lose many places where they can hang out on the side of road (I’ve talked about how important this is for people here) and many children would lose their playgrounds.

I find that we so often have entrenched, unquestioned ideas of what a “good” city should look like. We often forget that any change in current practices almost always brings a good and bad side. I’m not advocating for never changing anything; I’m just saying that we often forget to see the implications of what we’re trying to advocate