Despite fears that it would incite road rage or just old-fashioned scorn, "Park(ing) Day L.A." was a great success. "Park(ing) Day" originated, as so many.... Despite fears that it would incite road rage or just old-fashioned scorn, "Park(ing) Day L.A." was a great success.

"Park(ing) Day" originated, as so many good things do, in San Francisco, when a bunch of urban activists with pocketfuls of quarters "rented" metered parking spots for a day and transformed them in mini-parks, complete with picnics, public art, and music. The idea was to show what we have given up in our obsessive quest accommodate the car.

This year the idea propagated to Los Angeles, where I myself encountered three of the charming little parks as I cycled around the city doing business.

I heard no complaints, read no reports of ill-will in the papers--in fact, the Los Angeles Downtown News published a laudatory report on Park(ing) Day by tis architecture critic, Sam Hall Kaplan, who said, among other things, "Though most were on display for just a few hours, 'Park(ing) Day L.A.,' held Friday, Sept. 21, made its point in the best show-and-tell school tradition. It was a welcomed departure from the endless dead-end academic discussions over the prospects of public space."

He went on to introduce the Dutch concept of the woonerf, a streetspace designed to be shared equally among pedestrians, bicycles, and slow-moving cars, with an explanation of its benefits to neighborhoods and its potential in the US.

Read Mr. Kaplan's entire article at Park for a Day.