Category: public space

Free parkletting?

25 January, 2013 (10:00) | Cities, land rent, Parking, parklets, permitting, Politics, public space, San Francisco, sidewalks, Urbanization, Zoning | 1 comment

By:David A. Smith   Nothing is so complicated in San Francisco as doing an altruistic thing without sufficient permission – for, as revealed in the San Francisco Chronicle (January 6, 2013), that can provoke the wrath of an unpropitiated local troll.  To begin with, we must start with a clever urban innovation to convert some [...]

The rub of the green: Part 3, A dissolution of partnership?

30 August, 2012 (09:22) | Boston, business improvement district, Cities, Greenway, Non-Profits, Parks, public space, Subsidy, Theory |

By: David A. Smith [Continued from yesterday's Part 2 and the preceding Part 1.]   In the two posts so far we’ve seen that the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, birthed in a flash of public spirit, was abandoned on the doorstep of a conservancy:   When the Big Dig was in full swing, it easily [...]

The rub of the green: Part 2, I become neglected, and am provided for

29 August, 2012 (09:30) | Boston, business improvement district, Cities, Greenway, Non-Profits, Parks, public space, Subsidy, Theory |

By:David A. Smith [Continued from yesterday's Part 1.]   Yesterday’s post on the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway chronicled its midwifery by cardinals on behalf of the late Senator Ted Kennedy, who despite their collective vision neglected to assure its funding, and the cost of raising that charming little offspring are playing out now, as documented [...]

The rub of the green: Part 1, I am born

28 August, 2012 (11:47) | Boston, business improvement district, Cities, Greenway, Non-Profits, Parks, public space, Subsidy, Theory |

By:David A. Smith   Everybody likes parks.   Kids like parks: Boston’s Greenway   Everybody likes to look at parks, use them, and have them always available for free.   Greenway, from above   Actually, let’s clarify that: everybody likes clean and safe parks.   The Greenway, October, 2011, when Occupy Boston was holding forth [...]

Then they came for the food carts

14 June, 2012 (10:25) | Cities, Entrepreneur, informality, Land use, Markets, New York City, public space, sidewalks, Zoning |

By:David A. Smith   Cities’ growth oscillates between chaos and control, between Jane Jacobs’ uninhibited urban mess and Le Corbusier’s uninhabitable blocks; while it is chaos that ferments entrepreneurial new jobs, chaos means clutter and entropy.    We can’t have you here, you’re providing a desired product and an entrepreneurial job   Into this endless [...]