Park(ing) Day

Park(ing) Day 2010: The International Phenomenon

Park(ing) Day keeps getting bigger every year. Since starting in 2005, it has grown each year; last year 700 parks were set up in 140 cities on all six continents. This year, it might be even bigger.

By Noah Kazis

5:31 PM EDT on September 17, 2010

Park(ing) Day keeps getting bigger every year. Since starting in 2005, it has grown each year; last year 700 parks were set up in 140 cities on all six continents. This year, it might be even bigger.

And in the last year, the governments of San Francisco and New York City, at least, have made the idea behind the event part of city policy. “Parklets” and “pop-up cafés” have been installed in both of those cities right in the middle of a line of parallel parkers, giving the official stamp of approval to the idea that curbside space might not always be best used for storing automobiles.

So as you look through this slideshow of some Park(ing) Day highlights from around the country and the world, ask yourself: Which of these cities and towns will be the next to make Park(ing) Day permanent?

To find more pics, check out the parkingday tag on Flickr and on Twitter and be sure to submit your own.

Noah Kazis

Noah joined Streetsblog as a New York City reporter at the start of 2010. When he was a kid, he collected subway paraphernalia in a Vignelli-map shoebox. Before coming to Streetsblog, he blogged at TheCityFix DC and worked as a field organizer for the Obama campaign in Toledo, Ohio. Noah graduated from Yale University, where he wrote his senior thesis on the class politics of transportation reform in New York City. He lives in Morningside Heights.

Park(ing) Day