99% Invisible - 520- Mini-Stories: Volume 16

Episode Date: January 11, 2023

We’re kicking off the new year at 99pi with a fresh installment of mini-stories, including: what lies at the intersection of a street and a road; the most unlikely of theme parks; and the evolution of ancient alleyways in Beijing, China.Mini-Stories: Volume

This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars. Happy New Year, beautiful nerds. As is our tradition, we are launching 2023 with another batch of mini stories from the 99PI crew. We took an episode in between to send a big box of Christmas gifts to our Lola, but we wouldn't leave you with only one mini stories episode, of course not. We have stories of a liminal space, discombobulation, the wildest theme park in the world,

and the new family road trip game that will soon be sweeping the nation, called Should This Be a Street, or a Road? Stay tuned. Hey, Dillini Hall. What's your mini story about? Hey, Roman. My mini story is about a word that I learned recently, and the word is strode, which is a portmanteau of street and road. And are you familiar with the term? I am. I am familiar with the word strode, although I don't think I know everything. So let's, yes, let's talk about it. Okay, so for people who aren't, it describes a thoroughfare that basically tries to do two incompatible things at once. And in the process, it does both things badly.

We call this the futon of transportation. So this is Charles Morone. He's also known as Chuck. And he invented the term strode. If you think of a futon as being an uncomfortable couch that makes into an uncomfortable bed, a strode tries to do two things at once and it fails at both. It tries to be both street and road. I think most people think of those two things as synonyms, but so what is the difference

between a street and a road? Yeah, I mean, I think that's right. Most of us don't think of there being any difference, but Chuck is a former traffic engineer and he gave me his take on how he thinks about those two different things. So we'll start with how Chuck defines a road. A road is about moving things over distance at speed. Okay, so that's a road. It's all about getting

people quickly from point A to point B. A street, according to Chuck, is a place like where people go to shop and hang out. In urban setting, a good street is one where you are going to experience more people outside of a vehicle than within a vehicle. You will have narrower streets, you will certainly have slow traffic, you will have lots of space for people. A good street is one that prioritizes being in the place over getting through the place. Okay, I get it.

So if you take the features of a road and you mash them together with the features of a street, you get a strode, which is a place where traffic is moving relatively fast. And there's a lot of development and people. Yeah, that's right. It's like an unholy combination of the two things. Strode usually have multiple lanes of traffic going in each direction. And then they're also lined with strip malls or big box stores or just business establishments that people are trying to get to. This is a place that when you look at it, the dominant feature of it is automobile mobility. The dominant feature is moving cars quickly. And in that case, it has a certain highway kind of sense to it.

But appended to that is in this very almost freakish kind of way is this afterthought of humanity. So we'll put on the edge a little bit of place for people to walk. Maybe we'll throw in a bench here or a garbage can, because there might be somebody walking by with a Coke bottle they want to throw away. I love the way he puts that in afterthought of humanity. You'll get a garbage can if you're lucky.

Exactly, yeah. I mean, that's their concession to people as a garbage can. And the way Chuck describes it, and I think the way most people who've driven down a strode experience it, is that because they're confused about their purpose, they're very stressful, like for everybody. If you're driving through these environments, they create a lot of tension within you because everything about the design is saying go fast. But everything about the, from the speed limit

to the traffic signals to the turning traffic is slowing you down artificially from what the design is expressing to you. And so when you're in a car, you're like, why is it so crowded here? Like, why is it so stop and go? And then so when you're in a car, you're like, why is it so crowded here? Like, why is it so stop and go? And then, if you're a pedestrian or a bicyclist, you're just like, try not to die. 80% of the crashes that result in a fatality or a traumatic injury are on arterials and

collectors, which essentially are our strobes. These are really dangerous environments and everybody can feel them when they're in that. And the wild thing is that even those strokes are dangerous and disorienting, and all the things Chuck has just described, they are everywhere in America. Like I've definitely had this experience where now that I know the word, strode, I cannot stop seeing them everywhere. It's like I have magic glasses on.

And I think that's true for most people, especially here in the US. Yeah, yeah. So why are there so many strode to the US? What makes it happen here more than anywhere else? Well, it checks us that it has to do with the history of development in this country and how we came to be a country with a lot of sprawl. Back in the 1930s and 40s and 50s, we began to connect the country

with a vast network of roadways. It was, as you know, a huge investment, it was driven by the work of civil engineers, and it was motivated by a very idyllic picture of what the country could be. We need you to go out and spend billions and billions of dollars building this brand new system to connect places. We're going to create a middle class,

we're going to create suburbia, we're going to do all this so that we don't slide back into depression and so that we create this great new version of America. That was the marketing brochure. And if you that was the marketing brochure and if you just Take the marketing brochure on its face like hold off on all the downsides. We know about now You can see why mobility and roads were so important to this Essentially suburban vision of America we can get more people to more jobs, to more places, to more opportunity, to more shopping,

to more, more, more, more, more, and we can really drive our economy. And so what is handed down to modern engineers is an ethic of mobility. Yeah, and of course, the mobility is really important. Like it was generally transformative to connect the country through the interstate highway system. Yes, totally.

But the value placed on car-based mobility also created the situation we're in now where a lot of us live in communities that aren't quite cities and aren't quite towns and where roads are really the bedrock of that suburban development style. And so all the time, we've just built a lot of places that are very car dependent and just they prioritize cars over people. Yeah. So I get that the history of the development of the United States has led to a lot of

roads. But if we're realizing that roads are bad, which I think that more history of the development of the United States has led to a lot of roads. But if we're realizing that roads are bad, which I think that more people than Chuck have realized that roads are bad, like why do we keep building them? I'm sure part of it's just inertia. That's how we've done it for a long time. I mean, Chuck described being a young traffic engineer and basically being handed this manual of standards that are just like received wisdom about how you build streets and they should be this wide. And when this knowledge was given to me, it was given to me as, you know, you would give

any sacred text. Like, here is our code of being. And this is, this is the way we do things. But there's another reason too, which is that over time, Chuck says, a certain theory of development has taken hold in a lot of communities. And basically the theory goes, if your city or town has economic problems, then it should build more roads because there's a lot of state and federal money to fund transportation projects. We have problems with economic development. We have problems with job creation.

We have challenges with getting this park fixed, you know, on and on and on, and they all become in one way or another transportation challenges because that's where the money is. And back when he was an engineer working on transportation projects, Chuck would make the argument to cities and towns that their investment in stuff like roads would eventually pay off. But over time, he came to doubt

that that financial argument was even true. Like, there's now a lot of research that shows that dense downtowns are not just safer and more pleasant. They're also a much better bet financially than suburban-style, strode development. What they have found time and time again is that the pre-great depression pattern of development, the pattern that was built around, essentially, people walking, that pattern has enormous levels of financial productivity. In other words, the community

is getting more tax revenue out of those places than it costs to provide ongoing service and maintenance. And on the other hand, development that looks more like big box stores, kind of strung along vast stretches of strode, that is not a great investment. Because they're built in a static way, not a dynamic way, not a way where they evolve and change over time, they also tend to lose their financial productivity when maintenance starts to come due.

Huh, oh, that's so interesting. So is there any way to Unstrode a strode if you want to make that environment a little bit better for everybody? Well in many ways that is now Chuck's work like he eventually left his job as a traffic engineer because He felt like his work was harming the places where he lived and worked He even wrote this book called Confessions of a Recovery Engineer. So now instead of building Strodes' projects,

he's become a kind of evangelist for denser urbanism. And he travels around the country, talking to people about how to build stronger towns. And he says that one of the most important things a community can do is just decide what is a street and what is a road. Give me two categories. I'm either trying to build a place or I'm trying to move vehicles quickly. I can't do both. I can't do both at the same time and have it be safe. Have it be productive. Have it be a good investor. I got to do one or the other. Give me a road or give me a street. And then, you know, once you've decided something is a road, treat it like a road.

No more trying to induce that cheap development, no more making huge investments in infrastructure. And in these places, we focus on moving vehicles quickly. We focus on not trying to accommodate pedestrians in a marginal way, we really focus and put our resources on how do we move cars really quickly here. And then on the other hand, when you decide something is a street, you invest in it and you make it better and you make the street safer and slower and you think about pedestrians and cyclists as you're designing it and you encourage dense development along the street. This is so interesting kind of forcing that binary to make people think about what they want out of

these, you know, conveyances. It's hard not to use the word street and road. It's so hard. It's so hard. Making it like this circular totology, but anyway. Make a challenge with this story. but anyway, biggest challenge in this story. But like, you know, for people who travel every day, it really, you know, it's really important to think about what is this for and then, and then, you know, and then design for that. Totally. And, you know, it gets back to that idea that I have these magic strode glasses now, that like, help me understand the built environment in this new way. And just as an example, a couple days ago, I was driving down a road in Santa Fe.

It was unambiguously a road. Like it carried me quickly across town. There was not a lot of development or stores on either side. Warned a lot of stoplights, weren't a lot of pedestrians. Its purpose was just very clear. And traveling on it was pleasant. And as I was driving, I muttered, now this is a road.

Which was really confusing for my husband who was riding along with me. He was like, yeah, obviously this is a road. What are you talking about? So then, he was like, uh, yeah, obviously there's a road, what are you talking about? So then, you know, I locked all the doors, so he couldn't get out and gave him a lecture on roads and why they're horrible, which is my favorite topic of conversation these days.

Well, I think it's gonna be a lot of people's favorite conversation, like when you're just driving around it's like street or road, street or road, what should this be? Yeah. Oh, this is awesome. Thank you street or road. What should this be? Yeah This is awesome. Thank you to me. Thank you Roman. Happy New Year. Oh, Happy New Year So I'm here with producer Jacob Maldonado Medina, who's name you've heard, but who's voice you haven't heard yet. So what are we going to talk about today, Jacob?

So Roman, in my short time on the show, I think you guys have all realized that I've got a real fascination with amusement parks. They've noticed that pattern in your pitches. Yeah, I mean, I love all amusement parks. I love the big ones, your Disney's, your universals, but I'm especially fascinated by smaller parks. I think the more niche and weird it is, the more interested I am in it.

And in doing some research for a pitch, I got really obsessed with this one park called Asiana Napoles, and Puerto Trunfocolombia. So this park covers almost eight square miles and it's located four hours from Medellín on the Magdalena River. The area is honestly pretty secluded,

which was a good thing for the previous owner of this land, Pablo Escobar. Oh, okay, so the land that this amusement park sits on today used to belong to, you know, world famous, notorious drug trafficker, Pavo Escabar. So tell me about how that happened. And I mean, what was he doing with those, you know, eight square miles? Yeah. So when this land belonged to Escabar, it sort of was his theme park. He was somebody who was not afraid to flaunt his wealth and spoil those around him, his family, his friends. Not only

that, but he was so rich that he just truly didn't know what to do with all of his money, so he had to start spending some of it. So he built us in the Nappolus in the late 80s and the early 90s, and quite often he let the people from this running area convisity state and experience everything that he had to offer. Which was what? It was a lot of stuff. First of all, he had his house, which was a Spanish colonial style mansion. There was a racetrack. There were many pools, 27 artificial lakes, a bullfighting ring, a brothel, vintage cars, a sculpture park with some really ugly sculptures, including some dinosaur ones that are bizarre

looking, and of course, an airstrip because because your Pablo Escobar, you need it. Sure. And over the archway of the property, there was a life-size replica of the first plane Escobar used to smuggle drugs into the US. And on top of all that, there was not just one, but three zoos. Oh, three. That sounds like a lot. So why have three zoos when one would probably do? You think one would be enough, but Escobar had a real obsession with exotic animals. He had elephants, ostriches, giraffes, rhinos, antelope zebras, exotic birds, all of that. And most notably, he had four hippos, which we will get back to in just a minute. Okay. That's tantalizing, T's. Okay, so Escobar builds this giant playground for himself,

you know, exalting in his past exploits and also just fun stuff to do with him and his friends. And then, you know, they're all having fun in these, you know, three zoos and a bullfighting ring and brothel. I mean, what happens when it all comes crumbling down? So the good times are rolling until December of 1993. The killing of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar is sending a tougher message.

Mr Escobar was gunned down yesterday and Colombian authorities say its message to other drug lords is the surrender or you will be killed. So Pablo Escobar is shot and killed by the Colombian police. And after his death, there was a lengthy legal dispute over who owns this land, the government or Escobar's family. The government eventually won and they seized control of that land. Okay, so the Colombian government takes control of Escobar's park. What did they do with everything that was there?

They didn't really do much. Most of the animals that were there were moved to different zoos around the world, but the structures that sat on the land were mostly left abandoned. It was sort of a government's way of saying that they weren't going to honor the legacy of Escobar. But that all changes in 2007 when the government finally leased the land to a guy who wanted to build an amusement park. His name is over to Dan Martinez. To exploit this destiny as a destiny of a region to reactivate the economy of the region

that had lost the security problems. In an interview with TV News Show, the National Desk, Martinez said that the mission was to take this region that was struggling because of security issues and reinvigorated. He was going to bring tourism back, essentially. There was a lot of violence that's run in the NAPA-LIS, when Escobar was there, which scared off visitors.

So, Martinez took over this property and took aspects of what was originally there, but kind of turned them on their heads to make this theme park. So, what do you mean by that? Well, the theme of this park is interesting and it's kind of all over the place. There's one section that's Jurassic Park theme, not licensed, of course. It's called Jurassic Adventure, and it's like a rainforest cafe at Jurassic Park. That part of the park kind of feels like a nod towards Escobar's own dinosaur sculptures I had when he owned the land. There's also a water park

that's Pangea theme, which I don't totally understand that as a theme for a water park. Eskabara's original bullfighting ring is still there, but they converted it into an amphitheater, and then the park features tons of animals, but unlike Eskabara, the animals on the park now are rescues. So they're brought in from other zoos and the goal is to give them a comfortable place to spend the rest of their lives. So they're home to tigers, lions, elephants, kebibaras, monkeys. On top of that, there's a butterfly house, a bird, and reptile house. And of course, there are those hippos which I mentioned earlier. Here we go. Okay, hippo time. Tell me what happened with the hippos.

After the government seized control of this land, the hippos that were escabars remained on the land because transporting hippos is really expensive and really hard to do, but they managed to escape from their enclosures and they reproduce rapidly. It's hard to say exactly how many hippos there are, but they're well over a hundred, and some of them still roam near the park. So there are signs posted all over warning people about wild hippos, and that might seem like a funny park-theming thing, but it's true there are wild hippos in the park. So there are signs posted all over warning people about wild hippos. And that might seem like a funny park theming thing, but it's true. There are wild hippos in the area. And this has become such an issue that in March of this year, the Colombian government declared hippos an invasive species. Scientists have predicted that their numbers could multiply

to over 700 in the next decade. And there are a lot of differing opinions on what the solution should be. And some of the offsprings of those original hippos now live at the theme park. So, Roman, I'm going to show you a picture of the park's mascot and I want you to describe her to me. Okay. So this is a hippo on two legs, bright magenta, like bright magenta with a crown. I would say it's a little femme hippo skirt, the necklace, really lovely. It's great. Great lashes, really, really big lashes. Exactly. Strong lashes. Yeah, so that's Vanessa the hippo. She is based on one of the actual offspring of Escobar's original hippos who lived on the land. Vanessa was rejected by the larger group of hippos, which I found out a group of hippos is called a bloat of hippos.

Okay. She was rejected. And so she's been raised at the park by humans and is very social. You can meet Vanessa, feed her carrots, and she'll respond to her name. And she's got her own blog, which I'll be honest, it's a little bit lackluster. There's not much going on. It's a few pictures and all the loremipsa is still on the blog. So independent of the aggressive evokes that might be taken over Columbia, what have they done with the Escobar part of this area? Like if they kind of erased it, are they preserving it and presenting it?

Like what happens to all things Escobar when it comes to this amusement park? The focus of the park definitely is not Escobar. In fact, it's sort of intentionally hidden, but there is a place on the property that's vaguely named the Memorial Museum. Most of the structures that Pablo Escobar built have crumbled except for pieces of the mansion. So this is one of the few places across the whole 3,700 acre park that openly acknowledges Escobar's connection with the property. And if you go to their website, you've even got a dig to find that. It's not one of the main listed attractions. It's no Vanessa. No, it's no Vanessa.

It doesn't get a blog. No. This is where you can see a few of Escobar's vintage cars park outside. These are all like burnt out and riddled with bullet holes. And inside the remains of the mansion is a museum commemorating some of the journalist and politicians Escobar had killed. It's meant to sort of be an anti-crime museum. This is partially an effort by the government to make sure that the life of a narco trafficker isn't glorified.

Because with shows like narcos that really show the glamour of the drug trade, the government's actively working against that. It's definitely a weird juxtaposition with the pink hippo and a tutu, but I think it'd be equally weird if they just didn't acknowledge Escobar at all. Right, right.

It's a pretty tricky line to walk, but the park really isn't meant to be Escobar themed. It's just a theme park on what used to be Escobar's land. Wow. And the best example of this is that archway at the entrance of the land. So when Escobar lived there, he had that replica of his plane, a little sessana. And then when Asiananapolis theme park took over, they took the plane and they painted zebra stripes onto it, so to add that like safari seam right in the entrance, but it was still too connected to Escobar. People who were watching narcos would come to

take a picture with the iconic archway in plane because it reminds them of who the park belonged to. And so eventually the park took that plane down and knocked that whole archway over. The plane was brought into the park so that it's not the first thing you see when you get there. So you can still find those hints of Eskabara, but you've got to look for them in the park. Wow. You definitely found one of the most unusual amusement parks in the history of the world, probably. I think so. What a series of conundrums that they have to solve, not least of which, is the wild hippos that have now taken over parts of Columbia.

I mean, what an amazing place connected to a really horrible man. Yeah, it's an interesting repurposing of the land, for sure. Yeah, yeah. Well, this is Fascinated South Jacob. Thanks so much for bringing us the story, and it's a pleasure tourposing of the land for sure. Yeah, yeah. Well, this is Fascinese uptick. Thanks so much for bringing us the story. And it's a pleasure to have you on the show. Thanks, Rowan. We'll go down a dark alley with Kurt Colstead after this.

Earlier this year, 9 and I PIs, Colestead co-produced a three-part series on vernacular architecture that celebrated our 500th and 501th, 500 first and 500 second episode. And in those episodes, our staff and friends this show, they shared their personal experiences with various building types that were near and dear to them. And in the end, we just had too many great stories. And so Kurt saved one for later. I did. And for anybody who's ever wondered how I got to be

this incredibly nerdy urbanist that I am today, well, there's also a little bit of my origin story baked into this tale. It starts in Old Beijing, a part of China's capital city, and I was in the country to travel with my father who was working there, and we saw all of these amazing sights, but to me, Old Beijing was the most fascinating place we visited. And I take it from the name Old Beijing, it's Old. Oh yes, yes. For starters, it's very, very old.

And it's this area that's defined in large part by these ancient Houtong alleyways, which are mostly car-free today, and are dense and bustling with city life, but in this cozy and comfortable way that I really loved. And these already narrow alleys in turn branched off into even narrower paths, like veins and arteries, forking into capillaries. But when I started to wander down one of these smaller paths, this old woman appeared at a doorway

and she waved me off, because apparently I'd crossed some kind of invisible threshold between public and private space. It was this line that only she could see, and to my dad and my brother, it was just a curiosity. But to me, I mean, you know me, I was very deeply intrigued and I had to know more. Like I can't let this go.

Of course not. No, me of all people know, no way. And so after the trip, I started digging into the long history of who tongs to try and understand what my transgression had been, right? And I learned a lot about the history of these who-tongs along the way, which have changed a lot over time. Way back in the 13th century, who-tongs were simply these utilitarian alleyways that helped Beijing function. I mean, it makes sense a lot of cities have alleyes. I mean, so what

was different or specific about who-tongs? Historically, it was less that the alleyes themselves were different, more that the architecture they served was, because the city's residential vernacular was dominated by this special kind of courtyard home that took up a lot of space. We're talking about huge wall-to-states, each containing multiple houses arrayed around this central open space. And so unlike alleys, in the way that we think of them running behind blocks, these ran behind blocks between blocks

because what they were serving was these huge courtyard complexes. Right, okay, I see. So you have this open space. There's lots of freestanding buildings between them. These alleys, they're not in a grid necessarily. They're basically like roads to access all these different spaces within these courtyard systems. Exactly.

And these Hutong serve other walled structures too. Like this courtyard approach I'm talking about was used for palaces and markets and temples and all kinds of other architecture. And in a way, the city itself was kind of like a giant courtyard mega complex because it had its own walls and watch towers. But then in the early 1900s, everything changed.

Yeah, I would say so. I mean, you talk about like the fall of, you know, the last, you know, Chinese dynasty, politicals, everything changed. Yeah, I would say so. I mean, you talk about the fall of the last Chinese dynasty, political struggles, you got revolutions, you got modernization, urbanization. You're like, I can imagine that all of that had an impact on the capitalist city as well. Yeah, just a little bit. And so the built environment was reshaped really quickly

and really dramatically with all of those forces you just mentioned. And to begin with, they started pulling down those walls around the city so that Beijing could grow outward. But of course, there's also this growing population inside the city. And I'm guessing that the courtyard homes and all that extra space was pretty tempting

when it came to developing some new spaces for people to live and exist. Oh yeah. And so to make room, some of these courtyard houses were predictably just demolished, which left an empty site for denser, taller architecture to be built up, but a lot of them were just filled in instead. So filled in and what's that?

Well, as in those open courtyards I was talking about, became packed with these new buildings. But of course, the Houtang alleys running alongside these big residential blocks. Well, suddenly there were buildings inside of the former court yards that they couldn't reach anymore. So they basically had to make more Houtongs to reach everything inside.

And was this like a planned thing? Or does it kind of happen? I mean, as far as I could tell, it really wasn't. It was pretty organic. And residents just sort of negotiated this mishmash of remaining voids so that everybody could have at least some narrow path into and out of the complex to get to their house. And these new paths that were formed in these courtyards aren't exactly public spaces,

but they aren't exactly private spaces either. They're liminal spaces. Or at least that's I hope why I was shoot away from one when I was an old Beijing. Right. So you passed this threshold where this bigger alley became a smaller alley that basically became like the pathway to someone's door, essentially. And there was no marking to delineate that, but that's exactly what it was.

And of course, for me, all of this was really charming and interesting, but that's always the case for an outsider. And things could be different for people who live there. And when I was researching this afterward, I learned that in some cases, for example, a large number of these very small households don't have enough space to have their own bathroom. And so they have to share a communal one. But some dwellings alongside the Hutongs are still quite expansive and luxurious, too. Like in most places, there's a huge range in terms of the quality of life

and the cost of living there. Yeah. I mean, so you researched all this after the fact, you didn't know this at the time. I mean, but what made you go down a Hutong to begin with? Yeah, no, it was so many things. There were all of these little grocery shops and cafes and bars, and there were residents

just relaxing and playing chess and sipping tea. There's like laundry strung up above the Hootongs, bikes leading up against the walls, and basically any niche that hadn't been filled by something else had plants in it. And so it was like the closeness and the density of this space pushed everything out into a shared public sphere. And again, it's easy for me to say, oh, that's cozy rather than cramped because I don't have to live my life.

And I should also mention that the meaning of the word Hutong itself has evolved as well, much like these physical spaces that we're talking about. So these days, Hutong can still mean alleyway, but it's also become a term for the neighborhoods that grew up around these old Alex. That makes sense. So these days, Houton can still mean alleyway, but it's also become a term for the neighborhoods that grew up around these old Alex. That makes sense.

Just naming something after the defining feature, like I don't know, her most a beach or something like that. Like the whole thing is not a beach. But, no, but it gives its character and that's what people think of when they think of the place. And for me, as an urbanist, I really love these Houtons. They're dense and walkable with all this street life

and all these shops. And you could say that they're right up my alley. No, you could not say that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, years, we might have trained people to see the who-tongs and not the great wall. Or do both. Yeah, I'd like to think so, yeah. It's very much, you know, always read the plaque, take a minute, look closely at the thing. It's so easy to overlook, and it's so hard to miss the great wall of China.

Exactly. Well, thank you for, you know, another year of helping us see the things that are pretty easy to mess with, I appreciate it. Oh, will you too, Roman? 99% invisible was produced this week by Delaney Hall, Jacob Moltenado Medina, and Kirk Holstead, sound mix by Martin Gonzales, music by our director sound Swansea El. The rest of the team is Vivian Leigh, Christopher Johnson, Emmett Fitzgerald, Chris Baroube, Lashmodon, Jason De Leon, Kelly Prime, Joe Rosenberg, Sophia Klatsker, and me Roman Mars. The 99% of his Vologa was created by Stefan Lawrence.

We are part of the Stitcher and Serious XM podcast family, now headquartered six blocks north in the Pandora building. And beautiful. Uptown, Oakland, California. You can find the show and join the discussion about the show on Facebook. You can tweet at me at Roman Mars and the show at 99PI at Ork. We're on Instagram, Reddit, and TikTok too. You can find links to other Stitcher shows I love, as well as every past episode of 99PI

at 99PI.org. You're listening to a Stitcher podcast from Siria Sexam.