Edinburgh’s Broken Bridge

The noisy chaos of South Bridge is not an isolated event; it is the symptom of the systemic pressures being felt by the residents and vulnerable populations in the streets immediately surrounding it. The city’s historic core, marketed globally for its beauty and spectacle, simultaneously serves as a dumping ground for the physical and social detritus that its affluent image tries to suppress. Truly fixing the street will demand more than traffic plans; it requires the city to address the fundamental social contract that currently leaves its most vulnerable citizens and its essential working-class communities to bear the costs of its systemic failures.