Outdoor Living Room

Tonight Jula and I rode the Xtracycle about 6 blocks away (2 over and 4 up) to meet with other members of the Inner Sunset Neighborhood Group to hang out at an ad-hoc outdoor living room space! A few people brought chairs and a table and just hung out on the corner of 9th ave and Lawton to meet some new folks and mostly talk about our neighborhood. It's exciting that people are actually interested in coming together to participate in our local community. It was great to see Ellen there too, I'm excited about the Inner Sunset Clean-up day that she's organizing on August 8th. Not only is it functionally a great idea but I think it will be a great community-building event too. She said she signed up more than 60 people at the farmers market last weekend! Many conversations were had in the living room pertaining to community, livable neighborhoods and general discussions about what we like about our neighborhood and what can be improved. Particularly I'm interested in the idea of creating a civic gathering space, most likely out of space reclaimed from cars. It's a tough sell for such a busy neighborhood but I think it's essential. Perhaps a block of street that's not all that useful for cars that can be turned into chairs/tables space with plants and a fountain or something. The new civic space at Castro and 17th St is a great example of what can be done with reclaimed street space.

My personal highlight of the outdoor living room was watching Jula ride her little Skuut bike around on the sidewalk with glee while all the adults hung out. Nice!