Can’t tell if you’re serious but this was a joke/stunt. The point being to show how poor of a use of space it is to have street parking lining every street in an expensive and crowded city.
He may have taken it too literally... but he does have a point. Everyone doesn't _need_ to live in SF.
> proving two points: one about the high cost of coworking spaces in an already unaffordable city, and another about how the space currently dedicated to on-street parking in cramped cities like San Francisco could be put to better and more human-centric use.
You can reduce your cost of living/co-working by moving out of the city.
I can't imaging wanting to deal with fumes, electricity, weather, traffic dangers just to stay in the city by converting parking spots to more "human-centric" areas.
Again...it was a stunt. These were pro-housing folks but no one is suggesting directly turning parking into makeshift long term office space or housing. Human centric uses might include — protected bike lanes, trees so that the sidewalks feel further removed from cars, food trucks, outdoor cafe seating, etc.
Also, sure, not everyone needs to live in SF. But that’s a completely unrelated point. There are still people who do choose to live here and want to make the city a nicer place to live.
Ironically, the pictures of one of the #wepark offices in the article was literally directly in front of empty commercial real estate for lease. What does this stunt prove, aside from being slightly silly? Should all the buildings be expanded by ~6',and the sidewalk moved directly adjacent to the road? Because even if personal automobiles are entirely eliminated, roads will still be necessary for access. As a tounge-in-cheek protest against high prices it works, but I think the grandparent is making a more salient point than the wepark group. If your job can be done from a temporary office environment (and many of the people interviewed already worked from their homes) then a far better solution to expensive real estate is to move, especially if you are already working remotely.
How much space can actually be reclaimed from on-street parking in a feasible manner? Likely not enough to make a significant difference in the price of real-estate.
Just a badly written article. The way I interpreted it (just having followed along a bit on twitter, I don't know these people personally) this particular thing is not directly about real estate. It's about better uses of outdoor/street space, focused on people rather than cars.
This is extremely valuable space, and it's rented out, far below its market value, by a city that claims to value environmental issues, to be put towards one of the worst offenders of carbon emissions (personal vehicles). It also adds to congestion and makes a city less enjoyable when the roads are wider and everything that isn't a car is a second class citizen.
Some better uses might be - more protected bike lanes, dedicated bus lanes, trees to offset the sidewalk further from the road or make sidewalks wider for a more vibrant, walkable street life.
Yeah I did catch on, but my read was that the conclusion of this stunt could drive thinking in a few directions.
One of the more popular directions would be to push for more building, and/or better transit options.
My recommendation was to push for more rational / sanity in the labor market choices: right now, it seems like it’s blasphemous to consider _NOT_ living in SF.
Rather than trying to push for enormous change at all levels, you can just say “nah there are better choices for me to live.”
> proving two points: one about the high cost of coworking spaces in an already unaffordable city, and another about how the space currently dedicated to on-street parking in cramped cities like San Francisco could be put to better and more human-centric use.
You can reduce your cost of living/co-working by moving out of the city.
I can't imaging wanting to deal with fumes, electricity, weather, traffic dangers just to stay in the city by converting parking spots to more "human-centric" areas.