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

by Roman Mars

The use of checkered patterns by police forces has roots in Scottish heraldry, traditional tartans, and one particularly progressive police chief in northern Britain.

While some find roundabouts confusing at first, data suggests they are generally safer and more efficient at moving traffic than fourway stops and other kinds of intersections.

In the years that followed, tolls were levied in some places to pay for highways while “free roads” (later called freeways) were also introduced and funded by taxes (so not really free). But auto enthusiasts and industry executives dreamed even bigger, with proposals like Futurama, which General Motors debuted at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. This acre-spanning diorama envisioned a car-centric future of wide roads and ramps.

Facts can’t be copyrighted, so works that collect them like dictionaries and maps are easier to copy without getting caught. One workaround used by industry professionals is to include a false “fact” or entry. Makers of the New Columbia Encyclopedia added an entry for Lillian Virginia Mountweazel, a fountain designer turned photographer who never existed.

“when smiling lawns and tasteful cottages begin to embellish a country, we know that order and culture are established.”

By some estimates, as many as a fifth of all power outages are squirrel related.