Micro-Gardens ~ From Concrete to Community

Thanks to the FT's Tracey Taylor for spotting the shift From concrete to community in the Mission District of San Francisco. Local resident Jan Martin tore out the fugly concrete and planted instead a small garden. And despite nay-sayers and skeptics...

"...her garden thrived. In fact it attracted the attention of the local community and passers-by for positive reasons. People stopped to chat when she was out weeding and several neighbours asked her how they might go about planting their own front-of-house gardens. Indeed this modest patch of succulents, evergreens and native flowers in one of the city’s densest neighbourhoods became the launch-pad for an ambitious greening project that has seen significant expanses of pavement replaced with gardens across San Francisco."

This spawned a boom in planning applications and a community volunteer body, Plant*SF, to advocate and spread more such gardens. What a great little story of DIY urbanism making for every more beautiful, livable, and vital cities!