Curb-Cut Effect
(when a targeted innovation benefits more people than it’s designed to assist.)
Design your city for ghosts. Make sure
there are plenty of places for them to sit; ethereal
as they are, they get tired of floating around all day.
Design cities for ghosts. Walls don’t work anyway.
The HVAC vibrating like philosophy.
Design cities for those who have died. They get tired
of being lonely. It will also be
a lithe city for the living,
with inevitable segues to kitchen tables.
I noticed my hands were shaking.
The paramedics tested my vitals. Immobile,
pale as a ghost.
Design your city for teenage pregnancy scares. Make sure
there’s someone to lose hours
with. Set an
empty
chair by your
bed.