Growing up it was hard to imagine a place with more potholes than Venezuela. They were everywhere, deep and wide and waiting to wreak havoc on oncoming cars, bikers, and even unsuspecting pedestrians.
I remember as children we used to be very amused when all of a sudden each pothole on the way to the beach was encircled, as if by magic, by large painted white outlines. This would happen from time to time when there were bike races. The organizers would prepare the route by marking each single pothole so that it looked like a stream of bubbles flowing ahead of you as you drove through the streets.
Fast forward to college and there I was newly arrived in San Francisco, marveling at the fact that one of the world’s great cities has nearly as many potholes as the childhood roads I grew up with in Caracas. New York, it turns out, has potholes, too, as does Paris, as does pretty much every major city around the world. The question is, what to do with these unsightly blights? Leave it to the Brits to make pothole gardens of their annoying road imperfections. Mini urban surprises of wonder.
Watch this fun mashup, Holes of Happiness, to see how neighbors in East London reacted to the guerrilla gardeners who were planting these pothole gardens while no one was watching. It has a bit of a Candid Camera feel and uses that humor nicely to make its point.