On a sunny November in 2006 near the corner of Mission and 1st st in San Francisco someone fed a typical parking meeter. It was the coin drop that would be heard around the world. You see the coin was not meant to park a car but instead a park. REBAR a creative landscape design group had the idea to get people thinking about parking spaces and their wastefulness. “What if we parked a park in one of those spaces instead?” And the idea was born. In only 2 years the concept was replicated in over 200 cities around the globe. Park(ing) day is just another way that communities are forming with the help of the Internet. Just try and organize something so large scale in 1990. You could not do it with a 20 million dollar budget, but today with something as simple as a website and a PDF how-to manual, a good idea can grow around the world. Whats better is the concept is bringing people together and getting them to think differently.

Makes me wonder what other spaces can be rethought if only for a few hours to help bring communities together.

Once you climb four flights of stairs in a nondescript warehouse on 2nd street in San Francisco you are likely to get lost looking for the door to Citizen Space. There is a small sign on the door and it’s easy to miss. But once inside you can see that the concept is anything but under the radar. Lined up in a row one after the other are ten Ikea desks and one large table in the back. If you want you can drop in and use a desk for free or if you want your own desk full time you can pay $350 for it. The concept originally started in 2006 by Tara Hunt and Chris Messina is to create a collaborative space where ideas flow not one direction but many and new people with new ideas are welcomed as a part of what makes the place special. The space was rented and started with a simple concept, it was time to create the perfect work environment. Coffee Shops were getting annoyed by the 5 hour table hogging and the living room is not all that good for getting the creativity flowing. So Citizen Space was born. Once the rules were in place they started talking Online about the concept and a few other people noticed. Then quite a few people noticed and today there are well over 200 Coworking sties all over the world. What did they do that had not been done before? They simply started with what kind of community and collaborative space they wanted in mind. They threw out the old landlord tenant model and decided that someone needed to define the space first for it to work well. They make idea sharing central to the theme and instead of getting a closed door-stuck in the mud environment they get to actually make things happen.

Go check out this article about a San Francisco development project that is now selling and then come back here and tell us if you want one of these buildings built here in Sacramento. You never know you might just get your wish one of these days.

I know its limiting and “not for everyone” but my question is not if everyone would buy one of these, just if there are enough someones. I think the pricing would be in the 150,000 or less range if it were built here.

Levi