a big beautiful collision

written in frustration for what is and hope for what can be

Who does it best?

Did you know that every resident in San Francisco is at most a 10-minute walk from a park? It’s an interesting brag. I envision something much greater for the city. In my dream world, there is no walk to a park, but rather a transformation of our walks into parks. We transform what we have created, the streets we drive, and the paths we walk. It is no longer a collision of green and grey but rather a melding of the two into something different, something much grander. 

We already messed up. This country has sprawled and stretched its limbs so far that to climb from finger to toe requires a car and three tanks of gas, and a $100 plane ticket, and a rental car and three more tanks of gas. This past winter, I visited my friend who moved to Barcelona two years prior. I was enamored by the ease of transport. The underground metro that spits us out a 10-minute walk to our destination. The swipe of a card and we’re there.

Can you imagine it now? The possibilities? Can you imagine the makeover my beloved San Francisco would have if we tunneled under her like ants, digging and building so we may no longer need to park at a 45-degree vertical angle? For $10 an hour at that. And to think, too, all of the space we need to direct traffic that can be transformed into the twisting paths of green. I can picture it now, whole lanes of traffic, asphalt broken and ripped up to make way for it. A shedding of skin. An urban cleansing. 

I want to bike beneath the trees. I want my path shaded and protected from traffic. I want to whiz past other bikers on their way to work. I want to do my part in a city that does theirs.

University campuses do it well. Bike-friendly, little traffic, communal spaces, lawns and benches, and trees. Our city is not a campus, yes. But it is a space of community. All of us people living our separate lives in the same city, going to the same restaurants, seeing the same bay, the same summer fog. And yet, we are disconnected. I have read about the disappearances of third spaces. The kids no longer have places to go after school. The bowling alleys are closing down, and so are the roller rinks. Every business scoffs and reads “no loitering!” The kids are depressed. The kids are lonely. We need to build community spaces to foster and engage our community. We need more green.

Parks are an escape, a relief. I visited the city of Catania last summer, I was suffocated by the heat. The classic, cramped neighborhoods of the European city stifled the sea breeze, letting the hot, humid air sit heavy in its streets. My only escape was a singular park in town where enormous sycamore trees towered over us, taking it upon themselves to shield us little humans from the rays. Long live urban trees.

So let us tear down and build up. Let us transform. I don’t want the unnatural urban collision of park and city; I want something much more. I want harmony of green and grey. I want the rooftops to turn into parks. I want people to walk upstairs and enjoy lunch beneath the shade of trees. I want bike lanes expanded and tree-lined. I want more parks! Build up if not out! I want our green to spiderweb out like veins, pumping life and nature into the angular cityscape. I want flowers instead of dirt, I want the buzzing of bees indistinguishable from the buzz of conversation. I want more. Have we given up? Have we forgotten what these spaces do for us? Have we forgotten where we come from?