The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design

by Roman Mars

Desire paths emerge when people trample on the grass to cut a route to the place they want to go when urban planners have failed to provide a designated paved walkway.

You are about to see stories everywhere, YOU BEAUTIFUL NERD.

Motordom even coined a new term: jaywalking. At the time, jay referred to a person from a rural area who walked around and gawked at the city, oblivious to other pedestrians and traffic around them. So jaywalking was a natural extension of this concept—a way to vilify pedestrians over vehicles and call out people who crossed the street at the wrong place or time.

When you’re a kid, you always want the window seat on the plane. Then, you get older, your heart dies, and you opt for the convenience of the aisle seat.

Fun fact: Second is the most common street name in the United States. Third is the second-most common, First is the third, and Fifth is the sixth. Inexplicably, Fourth is the fourth. A lot of streets that would be called First end up with names like Main, which is presumably why we have this counterintuitive order.

Subsequent criticism of anti-homeless spikes around London reached a crescendo when then-mayor Boris Johnson called them “ugly, self-defeating and stupid,” which arguably also describes certain British prime ministers.