Carving Out Urban Spaces for Parklets, POPOS, Pocket Parks, and More

When it comes to creating greater public access to parks and public spaces, there are lots of innovative things happening around the United States and world. Mexico City is transforming spaces under highways into public playgrounds and outdoor cafes, Pacoima, California, is transforming the lots of foreclosed homes into pocket parks, and Los Angeles has launched a "Streets for People" initiative to transform under-utilized areas of street scape into high-quality public spaces. The city is also working to create 50 new pocket parks in underserved communities.

Yerba Buena Gardens playground--built on the roof of the Moscone Center in San Francisco

On our family trip to San Francisco last month, we had lots of time to explore the city's wonderful parks, including the lovely Yerba Buena Gardens playground built on a rooftop (see above). (San Francisco, by the way, ranks second in the country on per capita spending for parks and recreation.)  I also had one morning to myself--a glorious 3 hours away from my kids--to observe first hand many other ways in which San Francisco has carved out dozens of new public spaces in a dense urban environment. This particular tour of mine focused on the city's parklets, POPOS, and alleys. More on alleys in a later post.

Parklets: San Francisco is the national leader when it comes to creating parklets--parking spaces that have been transformed into activated public spaces. Through the city's "Pavement to Parks" program, 38 parking areas have been converted into parklets since 2010, with the costs typically covered by the surrounding businesses. I visited about a dozen of these parklets during my walking tour, using a map created by SF Great Streets. None of the parklets I saw were being used as play spaces and did not seem targeted towards children at all. The primary uses for the parklets appeared to be extended outdoor dining and seating areas for adjoining businesses, along the lines of Austin's only parklet--the successful Royal Blue Grocery parklet on Congress Avenue. It seems like the parklet model is something that could also be used to carve out micro play spaces for children, along the lines of the pocket parks we saw in Barcelona last summer placed along major boulevards (see below), or the "urban" sandboxes I blogged about here.

Parklet in San Francisco

Parklet in San Francisco--Little Italy

Pocket Park for Kids in Barcelona

POPOS: San Francisco has 68 POPOS, which stands for "Privately-Owned Public Open Spaces." I had never heard of this acronym before visiting the city. The open spaces range from parks and plazas to terraces, pedestrian walkways, and urban gardens--all of which are open to the public even through they are privately-owned and privately-managed. Many of the POPOS in San Francisco exist because of public open space requirements for new developments in the City's downtown plan. A local group has created a wonderful inventory of these spaces to raise public awareness about them, and there is even an interactive website (and soon-to-be app) with information about the POPOS. Here are a couple of the POPOS that I came across in San Francisco:

A Privately-Owned Public Open Space, or POPOS, at 555 Mission in San Francisco

POPOS pedestrian arcade and dining area at Embarcadero Center in San Francisco