"ABOUT THE EXHIBIT

Since
the onset of the "great recession" in 2008, San Francisco, like many
American cities, has struggled through a period of economic decline and
drastically reduced public resources. Fortunately for San Francisco, a
city with a long history of entrepreneurship and social activism,
citizens have displayed great wherewithal and ingenuity in the face of
budgetary stalemates—resulting in an outpouring of innovative
do-it-yourself projects ranging from activating stalled construction
sites, to constructing temporary public plazas and parks at street
intersections, to designing pop-up storefronts, to creating a national
forest in the heart of the Tenderloin.

DIY Urbanism
provides a snapshot of this burgeoning and distinctively local
movement, and explores the meeting grounds between the bottom-up
approach of DIY urbanists and the traditional top-down planning
process"