Park[ing] Day LA

The first annual Park[ing] Day LA, was on Friday, September 21st 2007, which brought together a diverse constituency of community groups, neighborhood councils, design & architecture firms, professional organizations, non-profits, cyclists & pedestrian advocates as they worked together and transformed numerous parking spaces & parking lots located throughout LA into ephemeral parks for the day. By occupying a parking spot, volunteers enhanced the streets with sustainably designed pocket-parks. We’re bringing back Park[ing] Day LA on Friday, September 19th, 2008. Too often, when people think of Los Angeles they envision a maze of asphalt, smog and traffic congestion. The automobile reigns supreme and as a result one’s ability to navigate through the City becomes compromised with the burden of too many vehicles clogging the road. Sidewalks have been narrowed and opportunities for open space, parks, civic plazas and public places have been sequestered into the hills, which unfortunately are often inaccessible to anyone without an automobile. Despite being home to one of the largest urban parks in North America (Griffith Park), Los Angeles significantly lacks adequate & accessible open space, urban parks, plazas and civic centers. ‘Historically, civic leaders had the mind set that Los Angeles was a city of single-family homes each with their own private backyard and there was no need for public open space, parks and recreation. This oversight, coupled with an increased population growth has left the City of Los Angeles with only 10% of the recommended 8-10 acres of parks and open space for every 1000 residents.’ While the recent development of such parks as the LA Historic State Park, Rio de Los Angeles State Park, Baldwin Hills Conservancy & Audubon Center at Debs Park are enthusiastically applauded, Park[ing] Day LA hopes to further celebrate the momentum of providing additional parks & open space throughout Los Angeles – especially as it relates to smaller, more infill opportunities to enhance the public realm with the benefit of recreation, landscape, habitat and opportunities to cool the City with increased canopy coverage. Additional parks will help reduce the heat-island effect of the City by converting our over-abundance of concrete and asphalt into green spaces that will inevitably promote the civility of the City by offering more spaces for the public to converge. In 2005, the Rebar group, a small group out of San Francisco, opened eyes worldwide by transforming a metered parking spot into a park-for-a-day in an effort to make a public comment on the lack of quality open space in American cities. Their goal was to reprogram the urban surface by reclaiming streets for people to rest, relax and play and to:

• Promote a critical dialogue among artists, designers, activists, citizens, corporations, and government regarding the need for urban open space and they way in which streets are currently used.
• Energize civic life by questioning basic assumptions about urban space while offering provocative and meaningful alternatives.
• Connect artists, designers, and activists with ways to permanently reclaim the street for people.

A diverse group of committed people were inspired by this idea and came together to bring this idea to the Southland. That's how Park[ing] Day LA was born. It is our mission to make participation in this global event as easy, enjoyable and as accessible as possible. It is our goal to bring as many people together as we can in the creation of numerous Park[ing] Day LA spots located throughout the City. We trust our efforts will help educate a greater audience in the problems and opportunities facing open space in this city. We plan to do this by:

1. Host[ing] specific parking spots along Wilshire Blvd. & other streets.
2. Inspir[ing] other community groups, design firms and parks advocates to create their own Park[ing] Day LA spots on September 21st and to register the location of those spots in advance so that we can create a map of all the parks created.
3. Network[ing] to gather interest in both participation and funding opportunities so that the challenges of creating a Park[ing] Day LA spot become more accessible to all interested parties.
4. Develop[ing] an interactive website to:
   • Show the how to's of making a Park[ing] Day LA park
   • Provide a forum for diverse groups to work together
   • Organize & program a curriculum of events
   • Map out participants
5. Publiciz[ing] the day and events to others can participate in it.
6. Educat[ing] the public that a park doesn’t have to be 100+ acres, that sometimes simply 100 square feet will do. Likewise, why do we choose to abandon so much of our livable space and dedicate that area exclusively for our automobiles? For instance, often one’s workspace or office at their place of employment is smaller in size than the amount of space they are given for their parking spot. Similarly, why do we sacrifice the land that we could otherwise develop for walkable opportunities into arterials to aid and assist unsustainable lifestyle choices? www.parkingdayla.com