Here?s the core section from a great Michael Kimmelman feature on cities in which space normally reserved for cars is being reclaimed ? sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanently ? for direct human use:
Cities need public spaces like plazas. For years they have mostly been planned from the top down. In New York, zoning laws have carved many of these spaces from commercial developments, which have been given bonuses to include them. Mayor Bloomberg is pushing a new proposal to rezone east Midtown, near Grand Central, that is a variation on this same old trickle-down theme.
But fresh thinking has focused on cheap, quick, temporary and D.I.Y.-style approaches to creating public space ? among these, curbside ?parklets? in San Francisco and a communal farm on what had been a derelict parcel in the middle of Phoenix. ?Small steps, big changes,? as Janette Sadik-Khan, the New York City Department of Transportation commissioner, described the logic of plazas like that at New Lots.
And guess what? A beer garden made out of freight containers on an empty plot turns out to be a lot more popular and better for a city than a sad corporate atrium with a few cafe tables and a long list of don?ts on the wall.
Please read the rest here. In 2009, I wrote about ?Park(ing) Day,? an international event aimed at temporarily transforming space normally allotted for cars for use by pedestrians. The next park(ing) day is September 20. I ended that post with this question and would love any fresh responses:
What efforts have been made where you live to take back terrain traditionally dominated by vehicles for some other purpose?
Source: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/31/take-back-the-asphalt/?partner=rss&emc=rss
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