At some point, the editors of all of Forester’s publications have addressed the problems with infrastructure in the US: too little funding, too much needing to be done, too many arguments about what should have the highest priority. You can see a roundup here of some industry experts’ opinions.

It seems every country has its own similar-but-different problems with infrastructure. In Italy, it’s the potholes. They’re so bad, and so numerous, that in Rome local residents are taking matters into their own hands—not fixing them, necessarily, but spray-painting big yellow circles around them. Those who are caught in the act face fines. Some of the potholes are so large that, according to this article from the London Sunday Times, people dump their trash into them.

The painting serves two purposes: One is to embarrass officials into fixing the streets, and a few of the highlighted holes have in fact been filled in. The other, though, is to make the potholes visible to scooter drivers. The mother of a 25-year-old woman who died in May after she lost control of her scooter started a campaign on Facebook to encourage people to paint the potholes in her memory.

The roads aren’t the only thing in need of attention. Many of the city’s public parks are overgrown and filled with trash. A plan to bring in sheep to trim the grass—as is sometimes done here to get rid of excess vegetation—failed after the sheep refused to eat it; it was apparently too dry.