#72-75: Parks and salvage

72–74 | Pop-up parks: Parklets. Ped plazas. Hell strips. Call ’em what you want—but isn’t it marvelous what pavement can become when a community pulls together? Last spring, San Francisco kicked off what’s becoming a West-wide trend when, with help from the Pavement to Parks program, a strip of sidewalk in front of the Mojo Bicycle Café was transformed into a leafy oasis on Divisadero Street. Next up? Portland, where a grassroots blog called Re-thinking the Right-of-Way aims to gussy up commercial areas such as Mississippi Avenue and Alberta Street. And our favorite in-the-works project is the Sunset Substation Park in Seattle: A pocket park with purpose, it would turn a defunct electrical station into a green space with a solar-powered canopy.

75 | Inspired salvage (pictured):  Only out here would people think to make homes from abandoned cargo containers and old planes, lamps from bike chains, or planters from discarded sinks. Call it a knack for seeing the potential in something others have cast away.