Mastodawn

Airmed, Dragonseer Sep 23, 2023

@docpop that feels so insidious - if you don’t think about it too much these are just… Beautification. How could more plants/flowers hurt a neighborhood, etc. 😵‍💫

Doctor M. Popular Sep 23, 2023

@Airmed totally agree. I volunteer to clean up our neighborhood park, which involves gardening/painting/etc. If someone asked me to help add more planters and I wasn't familiar with the idea of "hostile horticulture", I'd totally volunteer to help them out.

Some commenters online try to hide behind "why do you hate plants?" when discussing these barricades. Few will try to defend the real intention of these planters; displacing people from public spaces.

James Britt Sep 23, 2023

@docpop very slick. I wonder if a QR code would help as well.

@docpop These were all over my old neighborhood in Oakland (although they were DIY versions). No one watered them so the plants all died and they just became a magnet for trash and tagging. Greening public space/heat islands is important work, it's sad to see it undermined for malicious ends.

scott f Sep 23, 2023

@ihazrabies @docpop what neighborhood? Were they a similar type—big super heavy metal tanks?

@scott @docpop Fruitvale. Some were tanks from Home Depot and some were wooden planters made from old pallettes. They're generally on the street, along the curb, to prevent RVs from parking. Although I've seen them on the sidewalk in spots.

@scott @docpop Here's an example from San Leandro St.

Doctor M. Popular Sep 23, 2023

@ihazrabies @scott I hadn't seen these on the street before. That's very interesting usage.

Do you think it's possible they were installed on the sidewalk, but then moved to the street?

@docpop @scott No, these were done by my direct neighbors and/or their landlords so I saw everything unfold. In this part of Fruitvale every crop of planters equals a spot where an RV had previously burned.

Jeff Byrnes Sep 23, 2023

@ihazrabies @docpop I was just wondering if this is purely a greening thing run amok. Why not both, of course?

SF is unusually deprived of street trees & such, but this ain’t the way to fix that. Take some fucking parking spaces & turn them into bioswales & street tree beds, and properly care for them.