"The most essential designed component of New York is not a skyscraper or a station, but the street. That basic workhorse of public space carries people, freight, and vehicles on its surface; water, sewage, power, gas, steam, and data below. It is a complex but archaic machine — improvised, mistreated, and endlessly patched up. It needs an overhaul, and it needs one now."

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/01/what-is-a-city-street-and-what-will-it-become.html