Activists to Turn Parking Spaces into Green Spaces
Between all the mammoth S.U.V.s, boxy minivans and compact cars, parallel parking in any city can be a nightmare. Come Sept. 19 to the streets of Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and several other cities, drivers desperately vying for precious curbside parking will also have to compete with potted plants, park benches, bicycles and some clever environmental activists.
Park(ing) Day encourages city residents to temporarily – and legally – take over curbside parking spaces and convert them into miniature parks for public use. The idea behind the event is to rededicate public land tailored to an unsustainable automobile culture and use it to create open green spaces in cites where public parks are scarce.
Nationwide Park(ing) Day was inspired by an effort in San Francisco in 2005. REBAR, a collaborative group of artists, designers and activists, made headlines for turning a metered parking spot into a public park for a day. The movement soon spread across the country and has since moved to other 50 cities around the globe. Last year’s Park(ing) Day resulted in the creation of over 200 temporary parks.
Through these coordinated and peaceful acts of guerilla gardening, organizers hope to spark a dialogue about the way public lands are used in urban areas. For cities like Los Angeles and Philadelphia, dialogue is hopefully just the first step.
Despite having the nation’s tenth largest municipally owned park – the 4,218-acre Griffith Park – most of Los Angeles lacks access to public lands, according to a 2007 needs-analysis survey conducted by the Trust for Public Land. The nation’s second largest city only has 1.3 park units per 10,000 residents, one of the lowest ratios among all American cities. By contrast, St. Petersburg, Fla., which has just one-twentieth the population of Los Angeles, boasts 13.3 park units per 10,000 residents, the highest ratio in the nation.
Philadelphia, whose residents suffer from a similar lack of access to open space, could stand to benefit from this year’s event. Like Los Angeles, Philadelphia maintains one of the largest municipally owned parks in the country – Fairmount Park. Aside from this considerable swath of green space that borders the windy Schuylkill River through Philadelphia County, the City of Brotherly Love is much deprived of park areas, maintaining only 2.1 park units per 10,000 residents.
The 4,100-acre Fairmount Park lies on the western periphery of the city’s most densely populated areas. With the exception of Independence National Historical Park – home to Independence Hall, the Constitution Center and the Liberty Bell – and Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park tucked away to the far south of the city, park areas are limited to a few playgrounds and fields scattered haphazardly across the grid.
One can only imagine how the notoriously vigilant Philadelphia Parking Authority, subject of the A&E reality show “Parking Wars,” and perhaps the most efficient branch of the city government, will react to a few potted plants along its more populated roadways. Assuming Park(ing) Day’s guerilla gardeners keep the meters running, the event should prove to be a rare, albeit brief opportunity to enjoy a little more green among these red and brown buildings.
Brian Krier is an Editorial Assistant for Next American City magazine.
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Georgia in Berkeley, CA, USA on Fri, Aug 22, 2008 at 10:57am
What is the standard park units per 10,000 residents? And what role does this ratio have in city (and park) planning in Philadelphia?
bill emory in Charlottesville, Virginia on Sat, Aug 23, 2008 at 9:14am
My question much the same as Georgia’s above. What is a park unit? What attributes are necessary before raw acreage is designated parkland (and thereby included in the park unit calculation). If we were calculating “park units” for the USA as a whole, would National Forests be included?
DNS in USA on Sun, Aug 24, 2008 at 1:32pm
This project seems amazing, I hope to see these Green Spaces soon…
Nick in Philadelphia on Mon, Sep 08, 2008 at 8:54pm
Your article is misleading. While Philadelphia’s (I cannot speak for LA) city is without adequate park space, the areas I assume and fear will be targeted will be those in Center City (Rittenhouse, Society Hill); these areas have excellent access to greenspace. Rather than address the areas that need asssitance, you will annoy those who are currently working to make Philadelphia more sustainable with your “photo-op” hijinx. The areas without adequate access, and which really do need your attention, lie in North and West Philadelphia, the most disadvantaged neighborhoods, and also the most dangerous. These will be ignored by your readers, in part because they are unfamiliar, but mostly because they are afraid. Rather than bother those in sustainable communities, working to spread the ideology, please be my guest and try the makeshift parks in Olney, Powelton Village, or West Philly: the tragedy will make an excellent Sunday morning newstory.