Challenge #01715-D254: Beautiful Downtown Babel

It was gridlocked regularly, so they added another lane. Then more cars and trucks came. -- Knitnan

Once, there was a city. It was by a natural port, so it grew with the aim of trade in mind. The lanes and byways were made by horses and the places where people thought it would be convenient to have a building. Cars came, and things changed. Narrow little lanes that could afford a horse became places to build. Wide lanes became wider. Traffic happened. Cars and trucks clogged the byways and fouled the air.

Gridlock happened. People in their cars and trucks were in the way of everyone else in their cars and trucks. The people who lived nearby moved out. Into wide areas where they could see a little green which meant that they needed cars to get to their place of work, which was in the city.

Buildings fell. Roads widened. More buildings sprang up. And, as always, there were more vehicles to clog the roads. Year after year, the people in charge applied the same solution that didn't work to a problem that they caused for themselves. Some asked for reliable public transit, but the budget went to more roads. Always more roads.

The areas of green became ploughed under so that more housing in less areas, which meant for more cars in wider roads and less space for everything else. Buildings became smaller in their footprint and taller in height and that meant, because there were airplanes, that they became a hazard to the airport. The people who ran things would much rather move the airport than halt business in the city and look for a more permanent solution.

Now the city was encroaching on the farms that fed it. The debate came to space to live as opposed to food to eat. The city chose to import its food and plough under all the arable land in favour of buildings, highways, and another new airport.

Unfortunately, all the other cities had made the same decision.

Once, there was a city.

Now it is a ruin. The descendants of the survivors forage in the weeds that have grown up along the highways. They hunt the animals that used to be considered vermin by the affluent people that once lived there. They tell tales of egotistical rulers who could build towers to reach the very sky, and how those towers fell. In the cycle of time, it might be the Almighty who caused the towers to fall, and cursed the people who had once lived there.

People tell stories like that. Over and over. And, over and over, they do not learn from them.

[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / harrisale]

If you like my stories, please Check out my blog and Follow me.

Send me a prompt [15 remaining prompts!]

Check out the other stuff I'm selling