Metropolitan Life and Uncivil Death

Extract

Metro manila in 2006 is a labyrinthine, megalopolitan fortress of foreclosure. Almost all the main arteries of the metropolis have become virtually enclosed corridors of free-flowing vehicular traffic, without regulated crossings where pedestrians and cross-street flow might momentarily interrupt the stream of hundreds of thousands of cars, buses, and trucks careening down these roads every day. With the help of numerous “flyovers,” or overpasses, and underpasses built by the metropolitan government over the last decade and a half, these ten-lane roads have become highways that coast and tunnel through the thick of the city, connecting the scattered, archipelagic commercial centers and gated communities where the upper-class and upwardly mobile sectors work, live, shop, and socialize.