"Each time he made the turn, he saw only the white, unused, buckling sidewalk, with perhaps, on one night, something vanishing swiftly across a lawn"... p.11 Fahreheit 451
Does it mean that the sidewalk is bent (upward), as when a tree grows next to a sidewalk and distorts it to make room for its roots? But then again, it seems paradoxical that it's buckling but also unused... Any thoughts?
Something that is buckling is overloaded.
This is a common verb to describes forces acting on metal, wood, concrete, etc. such that they lose their shape.
buckling sidewalks means that ridges have appeared in them.
If something buckles completely, like a building, it falls down.
However, a sidewalk can buckle (have ridges appear in it) from forces acting in an upward direction and not be completely destroyed.
buckling is the result of increased compression of a material (concrete, wood, metal, etc.)
Yes, the only meaning I can ascribe to this is that the sidewalk is bending under stress.
My interpretation is that it means that it is not being maintained, and hasn't been for a long time.
