Here's a Cool Idea: PARK(ing)

One of the great frustrations of urban life, especially in the fast-urbanizing areas of recent growth (such as we have around parts of Delaware), is the lack of parks. We have open space, but it tends to be farm fields which are nice to look at, but not places where one can sit and enjoy nature. Lewes has wonderful parks, but Lewes is an old place, a real town.

For the newer urbanized areas, here's a cool idea. A web site called PARK(ing) offers the idea of erecting a temporary pocket park in a parking space.

We identified a site in an area of downtown San Francisco that is underserved by public outdoor space and is in an ideal, sunny location between the hours of noon and 2 p.m. There we installed a small, temporary public park that provided nature, seating, and shade.

Our goal was to transform a parking spot into a PARK(ing) space, thereby temporarily expanding the public realm and improving the quality of urban human habitat, at least until the meter ran out.

I like this idea.