Most city planners will agree they spend more time thinking about parking than you probably realize. There’s a tough balance to strike between creating convenient car access to city resources and contributing to congestion, heat, and reduced land use for other amenities. Paradoxically, adding parking supply tends to lead to even more parking demand and traffic because it increases the distance between destinations people are trying to get to while reducing space and resources for walking, biking and public transit. So what’s a civic innovator to do? One creative effort gaining traction across the U.S. and the world is Park(ing) Day on September 20-22.

During Park(ing) Day, organizers repurpose street curb parking spaces as different kinds of public amenities to show how they can lead to more vibrant, walkable places for community members. This is what’s known in the innovation world as tactical urbanism – using short-term, low-cost, and scalable demonstration projects to catalyze long-term change. Past Park(ing) Day projects have ranged from bold art installations to shady green “parklets” for rest and relaxation to mini-hubs for games and entertainment that enliven neighborhood block parties. Many local organizations including Innovate Memphis have led similar types of tactical urbanism programs in the past from New Face for an Old Broad to Innovate’s MEMFix popup events in Crosstown and the Edge District among other now-bustling sites (BLDG Memphis continues to lead a series of MEMFix projects to this day). You may also remember MidtownMemphis.org’s official Park(ing) Day event in front of the Cash Saver Grocery Store on Madison Avenue in 2022.

If you want to turn a little pavement back into a community paradise for a day or see what other cities have planned, check out the Park(ing) Day website and mark your calendar for September 20-22.