{"id":47742,"date":"2014-02-18T12:06:55","date_gmt":"2014-02-18T17:06:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?p=47742"},"modified":"2014-02-18T12:58:58","modified_gmt":"2014-02-18T17:58:58","slug":"boston-wants-random-awesomeness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2014\/02\/18\/boston-wants-random-awesomeness\/","title":{"rendered":"Boston wants random awesomeness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Boston\u2019s new mayor is hoping a new city program will result in some \u201crandom awesome designs\u201d submitted for the city\u2019s public spaces. The newly launched <a href=\"http:\/\/space.newurbanmechanics.org\" target=\"_blank\">Public Space Invitational<\/a>\u00a0is, as Mayor Marty Walsh told the <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bostonglobe.com\/business\/2014\/02\/13\/walsh-looks-add-innovation-public-spaces\/lX8Dcsh678jIybfMsPFPvK\/story.html\" target=\"_blank\">Boston Globe<\/a><\/em>, \u201ca call to designers, artists, and engineers to rethink our streets, our sidewalks, and all of our civic spaces.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With this announcement, Boston joins other cities like <a href=\"http:\/\/peoplest.lacity.org\" target=\"_blank\">Los Angeles<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/vancouver.ca\/streets-transportation\/parklets.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">Vancouver<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/sfpavementtoparks.sfplanning.org\" target=\"_blank\">San Francisco<\/a>, which have their own city programs to get communities to rethink public space to varying degrees.<\/p>\n<p>While the programs in those three cities focus on creative ways to convert underutilized road space into plazas, parklets and other forms of the currently fashionable micro park, Boston\u2019s seems more focused on interventions in existing public space, especially of the technological kind.<\/p>\n<p>The program\u2019s guidelines say that ideas should \u201chave an inherent sense of wonderment and discovery built into them.\u201d They should also be able to be implemented within six months. The city will select a maximum of six projects and award grants of up to $4,500 to make them a reality.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s fascinating to watch the proliferation of these public space programs in city after city. Especially because it doesn\u2019t seem that long ago that taking over a street side parking spot and creating a pop-up park was a form of activism. Now these \u201cparklets\u201d have become a recognizable part of many city\u2019s streetscapes with formalized city programs to encourage their installation.<\/p>\n<p>Toronto, however, is late to the party. Despite the actions of Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam who helped spearhead projects like Celebration Yonge and last summer&#8217;s Church Street Parklets, city hall lacks the experimental public space culture that is springing up in major cities around the world. I&#8217;m sure if the city asked, Torontonians could produce a little random awesomeness of their own.<\/p>\n<p><em>photo of a San Francisco parklet by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/11646053@N04\/8013491286\/in\/photolist-dd8eLS-dd8k5J-dd8rCh-dd8pRH-dd8sTj-dd8ixj-dd8pRq-dd8ret-dd8n5y-dd8o6Q-dd8hPm-dd8fVo-f8ifgo-cqDfyA-cqDk3o-cqDdGN-cqDi3E-avF82Y-avF7TA-eeZp7j-eeTxVP-eeZcQN-eeTxFx-eeTLg6-eeZn4y-eeTxr2-eeZvpQ-eeTLTk-eeZvCb-ddRwzj-cqDuDE-eeZhVw-dPPNSA-dPJ85Z-dPPLS1-dPPN8s-dPPMGJ-dPJaZ4-dPPLs7-dmk8ZW-dmk5nZ-dmk8Kb-cGR3R1-dmk9a5-dmk8vu-dmk5kH-dmk5pZ-dmk8GS-dmk8zy-dmk5Ac-dmk5uR\">Sergio Ruiz<\/a> from Flickr<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Boston\u2019s new mayor is hoping a new city program will result in some \u201crandom awesome designs\u201d submitted for the city\u2019s public spaces. The newly launched Public Space Invitational\u00a0is, as Mayor Marty Walsh told the Boston Globe, \u201ca call to designers, artists, and engineers to rethink our streets, our sidewalks, and all of our civic spaces.\u201d<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2014\/02\/18\/boston-wants-random-awesomeness\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;Boston wants random awesomeness&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4097,"featured_media":47746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[47,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-parks","category-streetscape"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Boston wants random awesomeness - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2014\/02\/18\/boston-wants-random-awesomeness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Boston wants random awesomeness - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Boston\u2019s new mayor is hoping a new city program will result in some \u201crandom awesome designs\u201d submitted for the city\u2019s public spaces. The newly launched Public Space Invitational\u00a0is, as Mayor Marty Walsh told the Boston Globe, \u201ca call to designers, artists, and engineers to rethink our streets, our sidewalks, and all of our civic spaces.\u201dContinue reading &quot;Boston wants random awesomeness&quot;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2014\/02\/18\/boston-wants-random-awesomeness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-02-18T17:06:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-02-18T17:58:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2014\/02\/8013491286_79514cc6c4_b.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"686\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jake Tobin Garrett\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Spacing\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Spacing\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jake Tobin Garrett\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2014\/02\/18\/boston-wants-random-awesomeness\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2014\/02\/18\/boston-wants-random-awesomeness\/\",\"name\":\"Boston wants random awesomeness - 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