Great News: San Francisco’s Parking Spaces to be “parklets” permanently! Who needs parking?

Harry S. Pariser
3 min readApr 13, 2021

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Our strong and decisive mayor has promulgated that all of these thousands of “parklets” shall stand as proud symbols of neoliberalist aesthetic achievement for all time. We can’t say how proud we are to have these permanently in our neighborhoods!

  • There are too many parking spaces. Having fewer parking spaces will keep cars in circulation (generating more pollution), increase the likelihood of accidents, keep people away from local retail, cause MUNI delays when they double park and some other effects, including the disenfranchisement of some essential workers from the burbs who need to commute to work (as they inexplicably are unable to pay the city’s eminently reasonable rents).
  • The perpetual graffiti on the sides will introduce us to a variety of new artists. It will be one more sign that this is a World Class City.
Urban graffiti, while not as educational as corporate advertising, does lift the spirit and highlight emerging outsider artists that might one day rise to the august heights occupied by fnnh and, perhaps even match the transcendental aesthetic holistic transformative works produced by utter geniuses such as Jeff Koons and Matthew Barney. One can only hope!
  • The blaring TVs will keep us up to date on sporting events as we walk down the street. They will all go to landfills eventually, as will the toxic light bulbs, thus enhancing the city’s environmental reputation.
  • We can also conduct multicultural holistic tours which will bring home the world to San Francisco, raising consciousness as we exhibit our tolerance. For example, the lovely corrugated aluminum gracing the sides of the Blackthorn Tavern on Irving can be used as a teachable moment about similar structures in Trench Town and elsewhere. Both children and adults can learn empathy, a rare emotional state rarely obtained by the condo or loft dweller.
  • Even more advertising on the sides can bring more warmth to the pedestrian consumer, affording him or her added vital information which will bring them along their culinary journey as they prepare their deep dive into gustatory experience amidst the fog, rain and gracious passersby on their sidewalk scooters.
  • The lovely LED lights, so reminiscent of honky tonk red-light districts, can remind us of forced sexual slavery, both abroad and in some houses in San Francisco. The eye damage from these glaring tecno-eco wonders will make a mint for cataract surgeons.
KogiGogi is to be commended for ‘activating the street’ with its loud patrons and wonderfully offensive LED lights. These undoubtedly charm and entrance upstairs neighbors trying to relax/
  • As we all know, thievery is a great American tradition, as American as apple pie, chopping down a cherry tree, stealing land from the indigenous, giving them smallpox blankets. These lovely kiosks in parking spaces, which offer a respite from the hub hub of urban life (what with the TVs and the cars speeding by) also offer a great opportunity to “dine and dash.”

I am sure there are many other reasons. Any contributors?

If you are unlucky enough to both possess a sense of justice and of aesthetics, you may wish to contact your Supervisor and ask them to vote against Breed’s neoliberal legislation. ❤︎

Postscript: Our lovely, caring government has made the “parklets” permanent with minimal regulation and restrictions. Neoliberal policies rule! 📍

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Harry S. Pariser

Harry S. Pariser is a long time resident of San Francisco, CA. He is a writer (and author), artist and photographer.