Nice Idea: PARK(ing) Day Mesa 2019 > How Park(ing) Day Went Global But Not Quite Ready-For-Prime-Time Here

Your MesaZona blogger took the time (with high hopes) to go see a possible parking space transformation here at a Pop-Up event on Robson Street Friday afternoon - not once but twice. Once again there were more spaces than people!

PARK(ing) Day Mesa 2019

Public -

 Hosted by RAILmesa: Retail, Arts, Innovation & Livability

_______________________________________________________________________

View across Main Street
The Pit Stop Auto Shop

Here was the invitation sent by Augie Gastelum 

Join us in downtown Mesa for our very own PARK(ing) Day. The idea is that we transform an existing parking spot into a micro-pocket park for the day and see how people use the space.

We will be on South Robson Street near Chupacabra Taproom. If you feel inspired, feel free to convert your own PARK(ing) space into a pocket-park.

It was supposed to have looked like this image to left that accompanied the invitation.

It didn't . . . for any number of reasons.

The good thing was the social interaction + chance opportunity to meet and talk with Rob Wozniak, who's seen in the opening image seated behind the blackboard sign.
In other words, whatever Rob and the three other people did to get this off-the-ground worked for me!
We had conversations

 

_______________________________________________________________________________

 PARK(ing) Day is a worldwide event held on Friday September 20th where parking spots are transformed into temporary public parks.

How Park(ing) Day Went Global

by Benjamin Schneider Sep 15, 2017 

One tiny DIY parklet became a model for reclaiming streets around the world

For Park(ing) Day 2017, CityLab rode the wayback machine ... to learn how this global phenomenon came to be, and how it might just transform our cities.

“We created an opportunity for social interaction that wasn’t there before.”

As they searched for “unscripted fragments” of land in San Francisco, parking spaces emerged as an under-appreciated land use type in an otherwise vibrant city. What’s more, they could be rented on the cheap, at just a few coins per hour.

“We looked at the parking spaces and thought, ‘Oh wow, this is subsidized real estate,’” Bela says.

On what had once been concrete, they rolled out living grass, put up a bench, and placed a potted tree. Then they retreated across the street to observe the results, hoping their urban intervention was not an arrest-able offense. Within minutes, a man sat down on the bench, took off his shoes, and began to eat lunch. Another person joined soon after, and the two began having a conversation. . .

(See a brief history here https://www.citylab.com/life/2017/09/from-parking-to-parklet/539952/)

____________________

Recommended

• <img class="c-related-content__img" src="https://cdn.citylab.com/media/img/citylab/2015/03/Ben_Tran_IMG_0976/144x144.jpg?mod=1494539127" alt="">
  
  Why Some Parklets Work Better Than Others
  1. Sarah Goodyear
  Mar 11, 2015
• <img class="c-related-content__img" src="https://cdn.citylab.com/media/img/citylab/2014/10/chicago_people_spot/144x144.jpg?mod=1494540526" alt="">
  
  3 Ways That Turning Parking Spots Into Parklets Helps Businesses
  1. Eric Jaffe
  Oct 13, 2014
• <img class="c-related-content__img" src="https://cdn.citylab.com/media/img/citylab/2016/10/lead_960-2/144x144.jpg?mod=1494530413" alt="">
  
  Inequality in American Public Parks
  1. Alexia Fernández Campbell
  Oct 6, 2016