Civic Sense — The invisible contract

Queuing, not littering, and keeping noise levels down are not laws in most places. They are agreements. Societies that honour small agreements build trust. Trust is what lets strangers cooperate: in traffic, in queues, in shared spaces. Civic sense is not politeness. It is infrastructure.

• Japan's public spaces are famously clean. There are almost no public dustbins. People carry their waste home. The system works because everyone follows the same agreement.
• The next time you are in a public space, notice how small courtesies create or break the experience for everyone.