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How local, personal, and materially grounded understandings about belonging, ownership, and agency intersect with law to shape the city. In Owning the Street, Amelia Thorpe examines everyday experiences of and feelings about property and belonging in contemporary cities. She grounds her account in an empirical study of PARK(ing) Day, an annual event that reclaims street space from cars. A highly recognizable example of DIY urbanism, PARK(ing) Day has attracted considerable media attention, but not close scholarly examination. Focusing on the event's trajectories in San Francisco, Sydney, and Montréal, Thorpe addresses this gap, making use of extensive fieldwork to explore these tiny, temporary, and yet often transformative urban interventions.PARK(ing) Day is based on a creative interpretation of the property producible by paying a parking meter. Paying a meter, the event's organizers explained, amounts to taking out a lease on the space; while most “lessees” use that property to store a car, the space could be put to other uses—engaging politics (a free health clinic for migrant workers, a same sex wedding, a protest against fossil fuels) and play (a dance floor, giant Jenga, a pocket park). Through this novel rereading of everyday regulation, PARK(ing) Day provides an example of the connection between belief and action—a connection at the heart of Thorpe's argument. Thorpe examines ways in which local, personal, and materially grounded understandings about belonging, ownership, and agency intersect with law to shape the city. Her analysis offers insights into the ways in which citizens can shape the governance of urban space, particularly in contested environments.

Automobile parking. --- Urban parks. --- Public spaces. --- Automobile parking --- Public spaces --- Dedication to public use --- City and town life --- Protest movements --- Community development, Urban. --- City planning --- Sociology, Urban --- Stationnement --- Parcs urbains --- Espaces publics --- Dédicace (Droit) --- Vie urbaine --- Contestation --- Développement communautaire urbain --- Urbanisme --- Sociologie urbaine --- Citizen participation. --- Political aspects. --- Participation des citoyens --- Aspect politique --- Automobiles --- Parking, Automobile --- Transportation, Automotive --- Parking facilities --- Public places --- Social areas --- Urban public spaces --- Urban spaces --- Cities and towns --- Central city parks --- City parks --- Municipal parks --- Parks --- Parking