URBANmedias

Cities from coast to coast are giving up parking spaces (and the revenue that comes from them) to create green public places for people to sit.

It all started in 2005, when a San Francisco design company descended on a downtown parking space, fed the meter and created a pop-up park complete with sod, public benches and leafy trees. They called it Park(ing) Day, which eventually became an annual event. Then in 2009, when New York City began converting some street spaces into pedestrian-only plazas, urban planners started to see the appeal of pint-sized parks. Officials in different places began working with local business owners to convert parking spaces. San Francisco cut the ribbon on its first permanent parklet in March 2010; today the city boasts 27 completed parklets with another 40 in the pipeline. In the past year alone, cities from Philadelphia to Oakland and Long Beach, Calif., have launched parklet programs; others, including Chicago, Los Angeles and Roanoke, Va., are exploring the idea...

Via Lauren Moss