There are worse places to take off/land. Midway (MDW) has very little distance from the runway to houses and highway. Princess Juliana International Airport on Sint Maarten (SXM) has very little distance from the end of the runway to the ocean. Gibraltar International Airport (GIB) is also basically on the water.

Overrunning the runway is often considered avoidable from my limited understanding. Planes are flight worthy under _a lot_ of issues. Even single engine failure or engine fire after V1 (the speed at which you can't abort/reject takeoff without overrunning the runway) isn't cause to abort/reject takeoff.

With landing, the plane needs to touch down early enough and at the correct speed to stay on the runway.

Overrunning the runway is never considered a "good" thing. Rejected takeoffs that shouldn't have been and bad landings are often causes of death. They're expected to not happen.