Parklets and the City

Have you ever heard the term "parklets"? Parklets are small urban pocket parks, and they have transformed parking lots into public places in cities such as San Francisco, Vancouver and Philadelphia. They’re designed to provide outdoor space for residents and visitors to sit, relax and enjoy the city around them.

The city of San Francisco now has 31 parklets and counting, with 39 more in various stages of review. There has been a large demand for parklets in San Francisco, as evident by the amount of applications that have been submitted to the city planning department’s Pavement to Parks Pavement program.

For better air and less stress in our lives, we need more of these kinds of green spaces in our urban areas -- particularly in low-income communities. Parks, however, are expensive to plan, develop and maintain. Parklets offer an alternative solution that take advantage of smaller scale and lower cost as they are quicker to implement and easier to maintain. Parklets are just beginning to appear here in NYC, but for a city this size, we need a lot of them.

Do you agree with the value of parklets? Are there any in your city?

<More Info About San Francisco's parkles>
http://sfpavementtoparks.sfplanning.org/