On This Corner, Anarchy Rules (and So Politely)

Next time you’re in the neighborhood, take look at an urban oddity that I call Anarchy Corner. It’s one block south of the Beverly Hills Hotel, on the main traffic artery linking the swankier sections of Beverly Hills to the Beverly Hills business district.

Anarchy Corner is a six-way intersection, with traffic feeding in from Beverly Drive, Canon Drive and Lomitas Avenue, and it is one of the busier corners in the city. But unlike most places where three streets crisscross in a simple grid, this corner--because of some early planner’s expansive gesture--is a huge open plaza into which motorists venture like skaters entering an ice rink.

At each of the six corners there is a stop sign. But beyond that, nothing. No signal lights, no lane markings, no center rotunda, no warnings about left or right turns, no “yield” signs to establish priorities. Nothing but this wide-open space for motorists to make their way across.

Given these conditions, you might well expect to see a chaotic free-for-all on wheels, a kind of demolition derby. But I don’t call it Anarchy Corner because of chaos. Quite the dramatic contrary. Chaos, remember, is the secondary meaning of the word anarchy. The original, core meaning is freedom--freedom from rules or compulsion, the state of being “on your own.” And to observe how these motorists behave, on their own, will toast your cockles. They don’t push, they don’t dart, they don’t play chicken, they seldom even honk. By common consent, obedient to an impromptu honor system, they are patient, careful, cooperative--as politely deferential as ants crossing a sidewalk. And (I will swear it!) they feel good about themselves.

What’s more, the anarchy system works. Almost always, traffic gets through quickly and easily. According to Nersis Yerijanian, an assistant Beverly Hills transportation engineer, the high traffic flow and low accident rate make this one of the most successful corners in town.

Political scientists and psychologists concluded long ago that uncontrolled individuals, functioning on their own, can’t run a nation or a police department or a schoolroom. Yet, if you are on the lookout for it, you can see the cooperative impulse working constantly in our everyday lives--on the neighborhood playground, at the movies, on the bus, in checkout lines at the supermarket. When circumstances give it a chance, anarchy can be beautiful.