We Treated Potholes Like Software Bugs and Accidentally Built a Civic Hacking Playbook

The Bug Existed Long Before We Noticed It

A while ago we did something that sounded absurd when explained in a single sentence. We bought spray paint, walked onto neglected streets, and painted around potholes that had been ignored for months. From the outside, it probably looked like an odd mix of street art and public frustration. But underneath the paint there was a very simple idea: if reporting a problem through the official channels was failing, maybe the problem itself needed a better interface.

At the time, we were not thinking about activism theory or civic systems. We were trying to solve a very practical issue that everyone around us had accepted as normal. Drivers swerved around the holes every day. People complained about them. Everybody knew they existed.

Nothing changed.

Only later did we realize that what started as a small experiment contained a larger lesson.

How Cities...

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