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?
4 comments:
Wow; I live here and didn't know about that. Thanks for the lesson and interesting law.
I love this idea! It would be great in Chicago.
ah, yes, SF, the only city I *really* love. My husband and I spent half of our honeymoon there, the rest traveling in northern CA. It is indeed a different kind of city. Hope to re-visit soon!
So glad that you got a chance to do that tour. It's my favorite of the City Guides tours I've been on.
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