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Los Angeles residents are taking urban betterment into their own hands, and it’s not just about safer crosswalks anymore. A growing movement is now focused on providing a basic amenity frequently enough overlooked: public seating.
“We just want to build a bunch of benches and hopefully people have some cool places to sit,” said Jonathan Hale,founder of People’s Vision Zero.
What’s driving this DIY urbanism? A frustration with bureaucratic delays and a desire to create more welcoming public spaces. Residents are stepping up where they feel city governments are falling short.
hale, a Sawtelle resident and UCLA law school student, is organizing a bench-building session next weekend, aiming to bypass the permitting process and directly address the need for more “third spaces”-places that aren’t work or home-in Los Angeles.
“There’s not that many places where you can go that aren’t work or home,” hale explained. “Benches, parks [and] open, inviting public spaces are a way that we can rebuild that in L.A.”
A Growing Bench Movement
This isn’t an isolated incident. Across the country, a wave of “tactical urbanism” is seeing residents implement small-scale changes to improve their communities, from pop-up bike lanes to guerrilla gardens. Unpermitted public benches have appeared in cities like Chattanooga, Tennessee; Kansas City, Missouri; and San Francisco.
The San Francisco Bay area Bench Collective has been particularly active, installing over 100 benches at high-ridership bus stops over the last couple of years. “bus riders deserve to be treated with respect and to have a place to rest as they wait for the bus,” said Mingwei Samuel, an Oakland-based programmer and the group’s founder.
Why benches? Samuel frames the movement as a “revolt against the trend of hostile architecture,” where cities intentionally design spaces to discourage loitering or gathering.
