On Friday, September 19 Portland energetically celebrated the endless potential of the public park. A few years back, design collective ReBar instigated Park[ing] Day to encourage city dwellers and suburbanites to reflect on the amount of surface space dedicated to the automobile.

This year Portland, among dozens of other cities around the world, embraced the urban intervention. Trust for Public Land, which is dedicated to purchasing land to conserve it as public open space, helped ReBar launch Parkin[ing] on an international scale, and has cleverly leveraged it as a full-blown marketing campaign for the organization. Although their coordination of the event has undermined its initial independent and spontaneous energy, Park[ing] Day aligns perfectly with the non-profit.

The playful activity is a catalyst for sober contemplation of disappearing public areas--the loss of space to relax, perform, read, play, sit, stroll, converse--in exchange for the ever increasing amount of space we use to park and drive our cars. Park[ing] Day is a wonderful reminder to take a critical, inventive, and humorous approach in interacting with our physical and social landscapes.

-Molly Cooney-Mesker