Background

“Outdoor Living Rooms are vignettes of furniture installed in public spaces – simple wood fixtures that give physical form to the social life of the street: waiting for a bus, meeting outside a shop, chatting or playing a game or just lounging. Steve Rasmussen-Cancian works with residents in low-income neighborhoods in West Oakland and parts of Los Angeles, where officially sanctioned and funded improvements are hard to come by.

The West Oakland Greening Project created the first outdoor living rooms with found furniture: discarded sofas repurposed as sidewalk seating. Their later iterations have been custom-made out of simple materials to recreate the park benches, front stoops and outdoor tables where a neighborhood's inhabitants have traditionally interacted with one another and created a community. At first the outdoor living rooms in West Oakland were regularly hauled away by officials, but more recently the city has informally accepted the installations and offered permits if activists would purchase liability insurance. In Los Angeles, local activists won full permitting for living rooms without fees or requirements to buy insurance, eventually drawing Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to come build a bench.” – San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association

Outdoor living rooms are similar to the San Francisco parklet concept, but are more appropriate for communities that cannot afford the infrastructure that parklets require.

Lessons Learned
Potential Benefits:

• Provides designated public gathering spaces in a neighborhood.
• Reflects the needs of the community.
• Is appropriate for both residential and commercial streets.

Potential Issues:

• Cost: Although low cost, the cost of street furnishings could be an issue.
• Maintenance: An agreement should be reached regarding who will maintain the living room.
Official intervention: In Oakland, a common problem has been that police take the furniture away.

Share-it-Square

Background

Share-it-Square is at Sherret Street and 9th Avenue in the Sellwood Neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. It was first constructed in 1996 for $65. Changes and improvements are ongoing.

Share-It Square was the first community-initiated and community-built project in Portland. When a group of Sellwood neighbors began building an unauthorized gathering space, a Portland city official’s response was, “That”s public space. Nobody can use it.”

Local residents, including Mark Lakeman, who went on to start City Repair, a local nonprofit that helps citizens design and build social gathering spaces in their neighborhoods, were primarily responsible for the design and implementation of this project.

“Our cities and places are no longer ours. We’re not building our own places; we’re not designing them to fit our own needs. Our lives are zoned like we’re a resource to be managed. We're housed here, and then this is where we work in order to pay for the housing we barely get to live in. Mixed use here. Monocultural use here. Parking garage. Maybe a waterfront here. Park. Park. It doesn't add up. None of them are really whole.” – Mark Lakeman.

The neighbors chose to transform an intersection, because a crossroads is a gathering place where people come together. “In America, our great archetype is the main street, which is not really a center. It’s just a flow. It’s a movement corridor, and you have to yell across the street because there isn’t a place in the middle. There isn't a social commons that you can attain and occupy.”

During the first project, the neighbors who lived around the intersection came out on the weekend, painted a design in the street, built all the structures around the corners–a bench, a lending library, a 24-hour tea stand, a children’s playhouse, a kiosk for sharing neighborhood information–and turned the intersection into an interactive social space.

Since then people have built saunas, put in gardens and helped each other paint their houses. Americans move every four to seven years, and that period of time is visibly lengthening right around that intersection because people want to live there. Families are clustering around it, having kids or bringing their kids, increasing the number of children in the neighborhood. There is more shared childcare and more adults interacting with kids on the street.

“New projects emerged over the years, as the intersection got repainted for about $500, which was raised by residents. People worked together. One neighbor built an earthen oven in the shape of her Australian tree frog, Oblio. It gets fired up for neighborhood pizza parties. Several neighbors went door to door and took 60 to 70 orders for fruit trees, huckleberry bushes, and other edible plants that will make the neighborhood a “fruitopia,” perfect for “grazing” as people walk through it.” – Mark Lakeman

Creation of the Square led to city adoption of the ordinance that allowed similar projects to be created. Portland’s ordinance requires that 80 percent of neighbors within two blocks sign statements approving the plan. After installation of Share-It Square, organizers surveyed their neighbors and found that an overwhelming majority (over 85% in each case) felt that crime had decreased, traffic had slowed and communication between neighbors had improved.

Sunnyside Piazza

Background

The Sunnyside Piazza is located at SE 33rd and Yamhill Street in Portland, Oregon. It was first constructed in 2001, built by local residents and City Repair.

In 2001, neighbors were complaining of noise, speeding, drugs, and abandoned cars. After a series of meetings and workshops facilitated by City Repair, they determined to paint a sunflower in the middle of the intersection, turning it into a piazza. One neighbor provided 28 gallons of paint. The city's street sweepers cleaned the intersection. Planter barrels were placed on either side of the four corners to keep people from parking in the piazza and to slow traffic down. Neighbors had a community gathering, complete with dancing and a visit from the winged T-Horse.

The next year, the city approved plans for trellises on all four corners, the first arches built over sidewalks in Portland since the stone gateways to Laurelhurst Park some 100 years ago. One neighbor, who had initially opposed the painting of the intersection, came up with the idea to plant honeysuckle in the trellises. Neighbors raised the money and did the work.

There have been a few acts of vandalism, but nothing serious. “Some kids have ‘laid rubber’ in the middle of our intersection, there’s often litter and one time someone pulled out the wiring in our kiosk.”

Jan Semenza, whose studies of public health have suggested that “urban planning processes may contribute to the epidemics of obesity, diabetes and depression that are sweeping the United States,7rdquo; has assigned his students to study neighborhood reactions to the Sunnyside Piazza over time, and to compare crime and other statistics with those at comparable unimproved intersections in demographically parallel neighborhoods. After more than 700 interviews, they concluded that 65 percent of Sunnyside Piazza-area residents rated their neighborhood an excellent place to live, compared with 35 percent at another similar but unimproved intersection. Also, 86 percent of Sunnyside neighbors reported excellent or very good general health, compared with 70 in the adjacent neighborhood. And 57 percent versus 40 percent said they felt “hardly ever depressed,” even in Portland's rainy weather. Calls for police services have decreased since the intersection repair.

Additional City Repair Projects

In 2010, there were 200 major sites and almost 300 little projects that have been built in Portland and around the state.

“Some of them are really simple things. Like, there’s this wonderful intersection that has a painting of an oak tree, in honor of a tree that used to stand there. Everyone called it Ruth’s tree after their neighbor, who had planted it when she was a little girl. When she was in her 90s, she died. Shortly after, the tree fell over into the intersection. So the community comes out and paints this huge effigy of the tree, right there. Then there’s the T-Horse, which is a mobile tea house–it travels around to different neighborhoods in Portland, and wherever it goes people gather to drink tea, or play Frisbee, or whatever. It’s a vehicle with enormous wings, so it really entices people out.”

“The Memorial Lighthouse is also beautiful. It’s a solar-powered pillar of cob that glows at night, decorated with bicycle wheels and mosaic stained glass. It was built in memorial to a bicyclist who was killed there by a truck. His mother and friends would bring flowers and gifts, and leave them in the place where he died. His mother would come and mourn him, just sitting there on the sidewalk. Finally the neighbors asked if one of the corners of the intersection–a corner of a person’s yard–could be turned into a memorial to him and a place for his mother to sit. So this beautiful celebration of his life was created. He was a bicycle activist, so there’s a strong bike theme.” – Mark Lakeman

At Southeast Eighth and Ankeny Streets, a shrine to the Virgen de Guadelupe was conceived, designed, and built with the Mexican day-laborers who wait on the streets in that neighborhood to be picked out for work.

Lessons Learned
Potential Benefits:

• Creates a sense of place in the neighborhood.
• Reduces crime by focusing more attention on the street.
• Expresses the local culture.
• Provides social gathering space at low cost.

Potential Issues:

• City ordinances: City ordinances may require modification to allow projects of this type.

Background

In the 1980’s, the City of Mountain View took on a variety of large-scale projects with the goal of revitalizing the downtown. Construction of a new city hall, performing arts center, and civic plaza were key projects in this effort. City leaders recognized that to achieve their goal, these new civic buildings would need to be accompanied by an updated public realm. They hired the urban design firm of Freedman, Tung, and Sasaki to complete the design work for $12 million of streetscape improvements for Castro Street.

The improvements to the two-thirds mile stretch of Castro Street modified the existing four-lane arterial, providing parallel parking within an 80- to 90-foot right-of-way. The right-of-way includes a three-lane street with 34 feet of asphalt roadway and a 10-foot wide sidewalk on both sides of the road that offers traditional commercial opportunities, such as outdoor dining. A key component of the design was the 18-foot wide Flex Zone on either side. Both the Flex Zone and the sidewalks were constructed with a special paving detail. The intent of the Flex Zone was to allow angled or parallel parking or outdoor dining in this area. To ensure that the Flex Zone was reclaimed for pedestrians, street trees were provided at 30-foot intervals. Up-lighting was also installed for each tree to ensure nighttime visibility, and also to increase the sense of safety and provide a pleasant atmosphere for nighttime strollers. Mid-block bulbouts with crosswalks were added to improve the overall corridor connectivity. Additional improvements included bus shelters, special paving materials, seating areas, planters, etc.

With the implementation of Castro Street’s new Flex Zone, the city established a policy of allowing adjacent business owners to convert street parking into outdoor dining areas. To be approved for outdoor dining, business owners must fill out a city application form, pay a fee and provide proof of insurance. The application must be renewed annually. Since renewal is not guaranteed for business owners, especially if they have a history of problems adhering to city codes, the renewal process helps the city with code enforcement. The city also has design standards for all furniture, planters, landscaping, dishware, and utensils that are used inside the Flex Zone. The city’s policy is to allow a maximum of 32 parking spaces to be converted into outdoor dining areas. As of February 2011, 27 permits had been granted by the city.

The Castro street improvements have resulted in increased foot traffic along the street. New businesses have also opened, particularly restaurants with outdoor dining. This economic growth not only translated into revenue for businesses, but also increased revenue for the city. Castro Street’s increased attractiveness to individuals and businesses has also helped attract new multi-family, pedestrian-oriented housing developments adjacent to nearby Caltrain and light rail stations, including townhouses with individual entrances that face the sidewalk.

Lessons Learned
Potential Benefits

• Creates additional outdoor dinning areas by using the Flex Zone.
• Uses up-lighting for nighttime visibility, an increased sense of safety and to create a pleasant atmosphere for nighttime strollers.
• Uses a consistent palette of street furnishings to create a very attractive, pedestrian-friendly environment that appears larger than it is.

Potential Issues

• Retailers: Castro Street has become a great restaurant street but it has been more difficult to lure general retailers to this area.
• Protection of street trees: In the Flex Zone, vehicles hitting street trees was a potential problem. However, it has been ameliorated largely by providing well designed tree guards and emphasizing angled parking. If parallel parking was required, an additional two feet of maneuvering room at each end was provided.
• Separation of Flex Zone: To help motorists know when they have entered the Flex Zone, the design originally called for a ¾-inch thick lip at the intersection of the roadway and the Flex Zone. While helpful for vehicles, this lip caused bicyclists to fall when entering the zone. The City has beveled this edge to allow for a more gradual transition into the zone. For future projects, a simple change in material would be enough to distinguish the Flex Zone from the vehicular travel lanes. Wheelchair access to the Flex Zone also has not been accommodated. A solution to this issue could be provided by having some dining areas on raised decks flush with the sidewalk.
• Maintenance: The special paving pattern and material is frequently damaged, and it is hard to replicate and replace it. It would be useful to explore a more flexible paving pattern and texture that is relatively easy to maintain.

Background

The Bird Rock neighborhood is located south of La Jolla in the city of San Diego. It is a coastal community with a population of about 16,000. La Jolla Boulevard is the primary vehicle route to La Jolla from the south, connecting to a network of residential and collector streets in the Bird Rock area. There had been safety and air pollution problems because of cut-through traffic on the wide corridor. The residents are concerned about the high rates of speed (38-42 mph), difficulty of crossing La Jolla Boulevard and peak hour congestion at a local school. In addition, a shortage of parking in the area, lack of comfortable public space, aesthetic condition and financial stagnation of area businesses were additional issues that needed to be addressed. The wide, heavily trafficked road functioned as a barrier that divided the neighborhood physically and psychologically.

A comprehensive traffic management plan was developed, addressing residents’ concerns about potential congestion and spillovers due to reduced road capacity. Through a multitude of community meetings and charrettes, the Traffic Plan was developed and approved by the community in 2003. The City Council approved the plan the following year. After three years of design process, the first phase of construction began in 2007.

The plan includes a series of roundabouts, medians, diagonal parking on the west side and parallel parking on the east side. On La Jolla Boulevard, pedestrians once had 68 feet of pavement to cross when crossing the street. With implementation of roundabouts and medians, pedestrians would cross only one traffic lane or 14 feet of pavement at a time. The street was redesigned as one lane in each direction with a 10-foot median that serves as pedestrian refuge area. There are two travel lanes that are capable of carrying existing traffic of 20,000 vehicles per day, as well as additional growth in traffic up to 25,000 vehicles per day.

The main feature of the project is a series of five modern roundabouts where La Jolla Boulevard intersects with five collector streets. The roundabouts on La Jolla Boulevard reduce the number of traffic lanes from four or five to two -- one in each direction. Speeds through roundabouts are controlled at 15-20 mph. Vehicles of all sizes are able to make all through movements at these roundabouts. Yet some restrictions apply to oversize vehicles making some turns. The street redesign also includes relocation and reconfiguration of bus stops, and new bus pads and bus benches.

Various traffic calming measures are used to calm the generally continuous flow traffic. These include bulbouts (extension of sidewalks that reduces the pedestrian crossing distance), speed bumps using a new split-hump design to reduce speeding, raised center medians, and street markings. Median islands are about 10 feet wide, and like roundabouts, well landscaped to add color and aesthetics to the area.

The project includes construction of new sidewalks and provides 30 additional parking spaces along La Jolla Boulevard, including diagonal and parallel parking in a five-block area. Cyclists can use Class II Bike Lanes on La Jolla Boulevard from the south to Colima Street and on La Jolla Hermosa from Colima Street to Cam de la Costa. North of Cam de la Costa, the bike lane becomes a bike path. Bike lanes are 6 feet wide from the curb face to the center of the 6- to 8-inch wide lane stripe. Bike lanes are 6 feet to 7 feet wide when placed next to parallel parking.

Several design improvements have been incorporated to better accommodate pedestrians with impaired vision who are crossing at roundabouts, including construction of new intersection crossings at about two vehicle lengths behind the roundabout yield line, installation of rumble strips at exits and tangential approaches to crosswalks, planting of low-profile shrubs around the circles all the way to the crosswalks, and construction of in-pavement flashers on La Jolla Boulevard.

Lessons Learned
Potential Benefits:

• Slows traffic by using roundabouts to slow traffic speed and provide inviting gateways.
• Reduces traffic lanes to reduce the crossing distance, reduce pedestrian accidents, and make additional space available for intersection and median beautification, including landscaped center medians.
• Uses phased construction to allow issues discovered during the first phase to be improved during the second phase.
Create a desirable environments for buildings to actively engage the street by creating well-landscaped medians, roundabouts and sidewalk planting areas.

Potential Issues:

• Right-of-way impacts: At some intersections, the roundabout design resulted in invading the private right-of-way, relocating driveways and utilities, or reducing sidewalk width.
• Large vehicle access: Some issues were experienced with access for larger vehicles. A low-bed trailer truck got stuck at the Colima roundabout. Some trucks were running over the curb lines at entry and exit, and buses got stuck at roundabouts.
• Maintenance: To maximize the desirable benefits of roundabout traffic calming, a high level of planting is needed in the medians and roundabouts. Low maintenance landscaping is necessary to reduce maintenance issues.
• Long blocks: Despite the well-designed pedestrian sidewalks, the distance between sidewalks is very long. People often dodge traffic and cross in the middle of the blocks, despite signs discouraging pedestrians not to do so.
• Construction issues: Some unforeseen conditions were encountered, such as shallow utilities, existing street crosssections that were thicker than anticipated, railroad tracks, poor soils, and addressing potential delays and drainage issues.Traffic detours and pedestrian and parking access during construction also needed to be addressed.

Background

PARK(ing) Day provides temporary public open space—one parking spot at a time. During this annual global event, citizens, artists and activists collaborate to temporarily transform metered parking spaces into temporary public places. The project began in 2005 when Rebar, a San Francisco art and design studio, converted a single metered parking space into a temporary public park in downtown San Francisco. Since 2005, PARK(ing) Day has evolved into a global movement. PARK(ing) Day is a noncommercial project, promoting creativity, civic engagement, critical thinking, social interactions, generosity and play.

PARK(ing) Day calls attention to the need for more urban open space, generates critical debate around how public space is created and allocated, and improves the quality of urban human habitat. In our urban environments, the great majority of downtown outdoor space is dedicated to movement and storage of private vehicles while only a fraction of that space is allocated to serve a broader range of public needs. Paying the meter of a parking space enables one to lease precious urban real estate on a short-term basis. The PARK(ing) project explores the range of possible activities for this short-term lease and provokes a critical examination of the values that generate the urban form.

PARK(ing) Day has since been adapted and remixed to address a variety of social issues in diverse urban contexts and places. The project continues to expand to include interventions and experiments well beyond the first basic “tree-bench-sod” park typology. Participants have built free health clinics, planted temporary urban farms, produced ecology demonstrations, held political seminars, built art installations, opened free bike repair shops and even held a wedding ceremony — all within a metered parking space! Organizers also have used the event to draw attention to issues that are important to their local public — everything from experimentation and play to acts of generosity and kindness, to political issues such as water rights, labor equity, and health care and marriage equality.

In 2011, the event included over 850 PARKs in more than 180 cities across the world. Just in Philadelphia, there were more than 30 spots in 2011. Participants are asked to map their PARK(ing) space on the PARK(ing) Day website, www.parkingday.org. The website also serves as a link to others in local communities who are interested in hosting a Park(ing) Day and provides resources for organizing a local event. The event is typically held on a Friday to attract the greatest public attention.

The legality of PARK(ing) Day varies from community to community. Although, no one has been arrested for participating in PARK(ing) Day, some PARKS have been shut down by authorities. Maintaining an attitude of community service, generosity and inclusion has been shown to help assuage the concerns of local authorities. It also helps to inform law enforcement of intentions to leave the parking spot in a better/cleaner condition than when it was found.

Lessons Learned
Potential Benefits:

• Promote creativity, civic engagement, critical thinking, social interactions, and play.
• Call attention to the need for more urban open space.
• Provide a temporary place for free health clinics, temporary urban farms, ecology demonstrations, political seminars, art installations, free bike repair shops, and even a wedding ceremony.
• Draw attention to issues that are important to the local public, such as water rights, labor equity, health care and marriage equality.
• Help transition to more affective use of street ROW for pedestrians and non-private automobile users of the street.

Potential Issues:

• Legal and Liability Concerns: The legal and liability specifics depend on the local legal codes and it becomes the responsibility of the Park(ing) day participant to check and obey the law. For example, in San Francisco it appears to be legal to do other things in a parking spot besides park a vehicle, but in some municipalities (New York City, for example) alternate activities are expressly prohibited. It’s up to you to be informed and flexible when it comes to obeying your local law.
• Maintenance: Part of the legal and liability concerns is the intention of the Park(ing) day participant to leave the parking spot in a better/cleaner condition. Usually, this has been addressed by past participants maintaining an attitude of community service, generosity and inclusion has helped assuage the concerns of local authorities. Participants also try to inform any law enforcement official about their intention to leave the parking spot in a better/cleaner condition than before. Some participants have been known to not just clean up after themselves, but also sweep the whole block!

Background

Desert Harvesters is a nonprofit organization based in Tucson, Arizona, which promotes local food production by encouraging the native, food-bearing shade trees such as Velvet Mesquite. Desert Harvesters was initiated by Brad Lancaster, author of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond. One of the key success stories of this movement can be experienced in the Dunbar/Spring neighborhood, which is bordered by Speedway Blvd to the north, Stone Avenue to the east, Sixth Street to the south and the Union Pacific railroad and Main Avenue to the west.

Since 1996, more than 1,200 trees have been planted in Dunbar/Spring thanks to an annual tree-planting program and residents’ participation, including Mesquite, Palo Verde, Acacia, Hackberry, Ironwood and Desert Willow trees. The trees are planted in planting areas along the sidewalks and traffic circles. A key part of the street improvements has been the installation of traffic circles. Each traffic circle is taken care of by the residents living at the corner, growing various edible plants with street runoff. Some of the streets such as 6th and 9th Avenue are now filled with vegetation and large shade trees. The trees, which are purchased in five-gallon tubs for $8 each, come from Trees for Tucson, a local nonprofit program (Innes 2010).

Besides using trees which promote food production, Desert Harvesters’ also creatively found a way of harvesting the rainwater—by cutting out a part of the curb and creating a water-catching basin around the native plants. As a result, the planting palette and the rainwater harvesting made the most of the desert climate of Tucson, which gets about 12 inches of rain per year.

Desert Harvesters holds many events to encourage public participation and to educate local residents on how to harvest and process their produce. Since the organization purchased a hammer mill in 2003, they host an annual milling event, helping communities’ process mesquite flour. At the Dunbar/Spring breakfast, they proudly serve mesquite/whole-wheat pancakes made with all organic, local ingredients. The mesquite flour is made from native Velvet mesquite pods hand picked by Desert Harvesters around Tucson – with most of the pods picked from trees planted within the Dunbar/Spring neighborhood. The Desert Harvesters website also provides manuals for water harvesting, guides for eating native plants and recipes for cooking (visit http://www.desertharvesters.org for more information).

Lessons Learned
Potential Benefits:

• Creates a “mesquite guild,” a small community of plants and animals. Underneath a mature mesquite tree, plants that need nitrogen benefit from the nitrogen-rich mesquite and the shade it provides. The mesquite guild attracts wildlife, such as native birds that provide fertilizer and reseeding. Lancaster says having trees shade up to 75 percent of a street's surface can cool summer neighborhood temperatures by up to 10 degrees Fahrenheit (Innes 2010).
• Provides a local food source, including fruits and flowers from native trees.
• Boosts the local economy:The Mesquite Milling Fiesta and Mesquite Pancake Breakfast at the Dunbar/Springs community garden attract tourists from out of town. In addition, individuals have discovered they can earn money by using the locally-produced ground flour in baked goods that are sold at farmers’ markets and at other outlets.
• Builds community through public events, such as tree planting and milling, providing more opportunities for meeting and getting to know neighbors. People also take more responsibility for care of the neighborhood.
• Educates community members about native and edible plants, harvesting rainwater and tree planting. The Desert Harvesters provide educational materials and annual workshops for beginners.

Potential Issues:

• Neighborhood buy-in: Community participation is important to implementing the changes and maintaining the plants on the street.
• The city’s support: Cutting curbs and installing traffic circles require the city’s permission. Planting of native species should also be encouraged through regulation.
• Curbside parking: Curbside gardens should be designed carefully so that the gardens are not trampled when residents enter and exit parked vehicles.

Background

The community garden on Quesada Avenue extends from Third Street on the east to Newhall Street on the west. It is located in the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood, a disadvantaged neighborhood in the southeastern part of San Francisco. The food is primarily grown on the median strip in Quesada Avenue, which is approximately 600 feet long and 20 feet wide. There is one 20-foot wide two-way road, including one parking lane, on the south side of the median and one 20-foot wide cul-de-sac on the north side. The cul-de-sac and the median were constructed to address changes in elevation. The block is constructed against a hill. The two lanes of Quesada Avenue followed the contours of the land, leaving the median in the middle.

The designated traffic speed on Quesada Ave is 15 mph. The traffic is slower in the cul-de-sac section of the road and a little higher on the through section of the street. The average daily traffic volume on Quesada Avenue at 3rd Street is about 667 vehicles westbound and 662 vehicles eastbound per day (San Francisco Metropolitan Transportation Agency 2010).

The Quesada neighborhood was an unsafe place to live because of drug dealers and crime. There were many vacant houses and abandoned vehicles on the strip. Bayview-Hunter’s Point was deficient in environmental health assets, such as full-service grocery stores and safe public parks (San Francisco Department of Public Health 2006). In 2002 when Karl Paige and Annette Young Smith started the garden on the street median, the neighborhood began to change to a safer, healthier place. The street median had been a dumping ground for car parts, mattresses and other jetsam. This inspired the residents to form the Quesada Gardens Initiative, a grassroots, community-building movement that illustrates the possibilities of transforming a blighted neighborhood into a healthy community (Quesada Gardens).

Quesada Gardens Initiative

Community engagement is key to the success of the project. The Quesada Gardens Initiative (QGI), with about 30 residents considered as co-founders, shows the trend toward local, comprehensive approaches to sustainable social and environmental movements. QGI is a local change strategy created and led by the local residents. Karl Paige, one of the co-founding gardeners, passed away in 2007, but this grassroots movement did not stop. Annette Young Smith remains the Chair of QGI’s Board of Directors. Neighbors have developed various projects, including the Founders’ Memorial Vista, food and floral gardens, public art projects and events that increase community participation. Under QGI, residents have created nine community gathering spaces, 12 backyard gardens, two major murals and a stream of popular events. While the most efficacious food production happens in the over 20 large backyard gardens and the community projects devoted to food production, such as the Bridgeview Teaching and Learning Garden, QGI has generated social cohesion through the development of the median strip on Quesada Avenue. This has resulted in a symbol that resonates with those interested in urban agriculture, and a physical hub that supports food production throughout the QGI network of projects (Betcher 2011).

QGI settled on resident-led design and implementation principles, as well as consensus-based decision-making processes to create the Quesada Gardens. The community-builders associated with the Quesada Gardens Initiative have been engaged in designing gardens, gathering spaces and public art in the neighborhood. In particular, Seth Wachtel, a professor at the University of San Francisco, and his students contributed to the design and building of the garden. They have attended community gatherings, recorded the consensus of the groups and created drawings. In the Quesada median strip there are variety of edible, ornamental and medicinal plants and flowers, such as collard, mustard and turnip greens, lettuce, cabbage, corn, peanuts, blue dahlia, lavender, aloe vera, sage, geraniums, calla lilies and cacti (Moody 2006). There are facilities like a composter on the strip, as well as a weekly volunteer program to support the urban agriculture. It is also a hub of a shared food program in the neighborhood, which was requested by Quesada residents. Food distribution is centered on families, churches and long-standing affinity group social networks (Betcher 2011).

Lessons Learned
Potential Benefits:

• Reduces health disparities by effectively encouraging better nutrition and physical activity.
• Prevents violence by strengthening social cohesion across demographic lines and by developing respect among diverse residents.
• Builds community by consistently involving new and long-term residents, and encouraging their reinvestment.
• Slows traffic through the lush mix of plants and trees planted in the median (QuesadaGardensblog).
• Reuses underutilized public land and demonstrates the potential for better utilizing other strips and small or irregular plots of land in the city.
• Beautifies an unsightly median, transforming it into an attractive edible landscape that is the pride and joy of residents. It stops littering and dumping when other strategies have failed.
• Improves the environment by reducing carbon emissions associated with transporting food. Visually, murals on adjoining walls not only celebrate the history of community garden, but provide the neighborhood with a unique sense of identity.
• Catalyzes other community garden projects throughout the neighborhood.

Potential Issues:

• Infrastructure: Some skill and expertise is needed to design and build the garden infrastructure.
• Funding: Grant-writing and fundraising skills are needed to support the project.
• Volunteer leadership: Strong project leadership is needed and volunteer burnout can create difficulties.
• Crime and loitering: The installation of fake cameras has discouraged loitering and crime in the Quesada Gardens (Quesada Gardens Initiative Board Meeting).