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Some of the most prized public spaces in Europe were once used for parking lots (and some still are). “Why are we so comfortable filling our most iconic public spaces with a bunch of metal boxes?”

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Dirk Bergstrom

One of the few happy effects of the pandemic is that my Silicon Valley town and the town next door have "permanently" converted downtown streets into pedestrian malls. It's lovely to see all the people congregating and having fun in an outdoor public space.

I put scare-quotes around permanent because they're still streets, and could be converted back in a day. But at least in my town the city spent real money buying outdoor furniture and put a skim-coat of new pavement covering the traffic markings, so it looks like it's going to be there for at least a few years.

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