Buy-boatsIn North Carolina, where we have more hogs than people, we also have cities with more space for cars than fo...

Buy-boatsIn North Carolina, where we have more hogs than people, we also have cities with more space for cars than for people.What if our vehicles were sized to fit our cities and not the other way around?I thought of this recently on a trip to the Middle Peninsula in Virginia, a watery region of creeks and rivers where for nearly a century wooden “buy-boats” sailed from creek to creek carrying freight on their open decks – a kind of waterborne FedEx.Buy-boats were originally built to collect oysters from solitary oyster fishermen. The captain paid the fishermen for their catch, hence the name buy-boat. During the off-season, buy-boats delivered freight, livestock, and vegetables.Instead of imposing upon the creeks, as cars and parking structures impose on our cities, buy-boats fitted into their place as gracefully as a river otter. They remained a primary means of transport on the Middle Peninsula until the advent of paved roads and concrete bridges in the 1950s.The old buy-boats…