Privately owned public spaces

John King:

The Roof Terrace at One Kearny shows why we’re lucky that San Francisco requires downtown developers to provide space in their projects that is accessible to the public at large.

It also is a case study in why the generation-old guidelines must be improved.

Consider this background reading for today’s upcoming posts. Privately owned public spaces, also known as POPS, have proliferated in recent years. They’re required by laws written with the best of intentions, but the result has been spaces that are often ill-defined: How are they advertised? Who has jurisdiction? Should you have to sign in at the door or not? 

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