[Vocabulary] Improving streets

[TitoBr]

Hello!

I had a conversation once about the developments in a host Brazilian city for the Fifa World Cup and the other person was looking for words to describe how the government was taking care of the streets. The only word that came out to talk about urbanization was 'improvement', but I understood her struggle to explain that some streets were being remade, enlarged, repaved etc.

What could have said about urbanization improvements, rather than only using 'improve' and 'improvement'?

Cheers,
Tito

 

[Mr_Ben]

"Improve" is a good word choice, "improving roads" and "improving services" are strong collocations so you two did well. In addition to improve and depending on what you are describing I would suggest renovate, restore, repair, beautify or fix up.

 

[CarloSsS]

...repair, beautify or fix up.

I always thought that 'fix up' is just a colloquial version of 'repair'. Was I wrong in my thinking so? For example, these two are the same to me:

They finally fixed up the road in front of my house.
They finally repaired the road in front of my house.

 

[Mr_Ben]

They're very close in meaning and I would say that "fix" and "repair" are almost exactly the same. The one difference that I can think of between "fix up" and "repair" is that sometimes when we use "fix up" we mean that we are making something better than it was before. If I fix my bicycle, there was a flat tire or a broken chain and I fixed it. If I fix up my bike, maybe I got a new saddle or new mudguards, I replaced things that were old but not yet broken.