Back some years ago, the city was considerably more decorative. Take the base of this lamppost … shell-like covers for the bolts. Honestly, you’d think that Botticelli’s Birth of Venus was immanent. And in some ways, municipal lighting was the birth of civilization, driving away the animals and thieves that prowl by night.
Securing property seems a rather old-fashioned municipal concept today, a ready object for scorn, but I think that is because we have so much of it (stuff, that is). Thus we can afford to be dismissive of property rights. But they are a hallmark of western civilization, and as much as they the trendy knock them, those in the rest of the world that want to immigrate prefer to go to countries where property rights are secure.
But back to this neglected civic asset:
Why should the city care about little things that can’t be seen while driving at high speeds?
…and why is the city wasting our tax dollars on such trivial decorations! I don’t get to see that pole! grumble, grumble, grumble…
My hunch is that these covers saved the city money. Lots of it.
Take a stud and bolt assembly and leave it exposed to the elements with freeze/thaw cycles and salt corrosion and in a year or two you will have a bolt permanently welded to the stud.
Try and break it free using mechanical leverage and you will likely twist off the stud at the base. If this happens on just one stud then you are faced with excavating the mounting base, pouring a new base with new studs, and remounting the lamp standard on the new base.
Not sure what the cost of all that labour and effort would be but it is likely considerably more than a few dollars in materials cost for the shell covers and the labour time to install them when iniitally mounting the lamp standards.
Plus they give the tourists something to photograph and comment upon!
Thereby driving the trade of the camera shops, computer hardware dealerships, internet service providers…