This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

There's this idea in city planning called informal urbanism. Some people call it do-it-yourself urbanism.

Some people call it do-it-yourself urbanism.

Basically, informal urbanism covers all the ways people try to change their community

that isn't through city planning or some kind of official process.

If you think about it, this probably happens a lot where you live.

If you put up a homemade sign warning people not to sit on a broken bench or that a parking meter isn't working, that's

DIY urbanism. If you put out a set of cones or a chair to reserve yourself your

own personal parking spot on a public street, you are a bad person.

But that is also DIY urbanism.

Gordon Douglas has written a whole book about this idea.

It's called the Help Yourself City.

It looks at all the ways people are taking matters into their own hands, both

for good reasons and for incredibly selfish ones. He's local to Oakland so he came in here to 99

P. I. H.Q. And we had a great conversation all about the joy and chaos of DIY urbanism.

And we started out by talking about one of the most perfect examples of the good kind of

DIY urbanism.

A municipal failure that led to a DIY intervention and then

to real permanent change.

The Hell Gate Bridge in Queens, New York.

Well, so the Hell Gate Bridge is this kind of enormous feat of engineering that was built to be one of these single strongest sort of structures in the known world at the time that it was built. I read once if all human life ceased to exist

it would still stand for some hundreds and hundreds of years with no maintenance whatsoever, right?

...