Interesting video about fake parks in Los Angeles
I found the first half of this video fascinating - a guy who knows a lot about city planning goes on a tour of "privately-owned public spaces" in recently-developed apartment complexes... then gets thrown out by security guards who are unaware that the green space in their apartment building is legally supposed to be open to the public.
The rest of the video then goes on to argue that the roads themselves should be narrowed to provide more park space, which I can't argue with... but it leaves you wondering how on earth the existing, badly-built park space could be opened to the public, or how the property owners restricting its access could be punished. It seems like something that's unlikely to ever be rectified.
This video only obliquely digs into the greater question of whether any park space should be privately-owned in a city to begin with, particularly when there's so much extra roadway that the city could turn into truly public public space.
The United States doesn't have a "right to roam" legal framework, and the widespread accessibility of guns makes it unlikely that we'll ever have a culture of... well, enthusiastic space-accessing. But this has left me wondering: how many seemingly-private spaces in the world around me do I actually have a concealed right to enter? Have the Pokemon Go players already found them all? How many of the security guards I see on the street around me are committing an unwitting offense against the public good? It's a deliciously weird question for someone like me - the kind of person who feels the constant pull to bike, walk, and stick my nose in places I'm not sure I'm actually allowed to be...