Murgatroyd would never have allowed this

The circle is remarkable for what it doesn't contain: signs or signals telling drivers how fast to go, who has the right-of-way, or how to behave. There are no lane markers or curbs separating street and sidewalk, so it's unclear exactly where the car zone ends and the pedestrian zone begins. To an approaching driver, the intersection is utterly ambiguous - and that's the point.

Monderman and I stand in silence by the side of the road a few minutes, watching the stream of motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians make their way through the circle, a giant concrete mixing bowl of transport. Somehow it all works.

A friend of mine taking a negotiation class in law school told me that after one multifaceted practice negotiation, most of his classmates wanted to know, essentially, how much they could cheat and still remain within the bounds of the (formal, written-out, external) code of ethics.  These are not dissimilar phenomena, I assume.