POPOS

I recently returned from vacation in California. It was an honest to goodness vacation without work and the quasi-work that we all find ourselves doing these days. I went places that my cell phone wouldn't work and my ipod couldn't connect. It was dreamy.

The trip started with a visit with friends in San Francisco. Just before we left, I learned about an organization called City Guides . They do free walking tours in SF. We checked out the schedule and decided on one called City Scapes and Public Places.

The tour was really interesting. It turns out that the city has a law that says in order for a building to add more square footage, the owner has to create a certain amount of publicly available space. They are called Privately Owned Public Open Spaces or POPOS.















We probably saw a dozen of them during the course of the afternoon. Some of them are rooftop gardens.
















Others are sculptures.
















One was even a little redwood forest right in the heart of the city.
















What a spectacular idea! More cities should follow San Francisco's lead. Can you imagine how different the world would look if every time a 10 story building was transformed into a 40 story building, a park was created?