Introducing Community Streets

Today I’m excited to share a new project I’ve been building over the past six months: Community Streets. Community Streets is a community-building platform and data toolkit laser-focused on two things:

1. Making it dramatically easier to organize block parties and neighborhood events — from navigating city permits and recruiting volunteers to fundraising, renting barricades, and managing day-of logistics.

2. Helping neighbors track the public safety and quality-of-life issues they care about most — so they can have constructive, data-informed conversations with city officials that meaningfully address them.

San Francisco is in the midst of a renaissance in rethinking how its streets can best serve the public good. Since the introduction of Slow Streets during the pandemic, more people are biking, scooting, and using sustainable transit than ever before. Programs like Downtown First Thursdays, Valencia LIVE!, and the Outer Sunset Night Market have drawn tens of thousands of people into the streets and generated millions in economic activity.

These initiatives have helped San Franciscans reimagine what our streets can be — and inspired more than 100 block parties citywide last year alone.

But if you’ve ever organized a block party, you know the reality: the process can be daunting, time-consuming, and expensive.

At the same time, San Francisco is fortunate to have many deeply civically engaged residents who care about strengthening their neighborhoods. As a board member of the Lower Haight Merchants & Neighbors Association, I see this firsthand at our monthly meetings. Yet even the most dedicated, well-intentioned communities often struggle to align on priorities and move from disagreement to action. In my experience, that challenge is universal across neighborhood associations.

Community Streets exists to address both of these gaps:

1. Bring neighbors together & build rapport by simplifying the production of block parties and community-building events.

2. Help communities focus and advocate effectively by providing clear, accessible data tools that support productive engagement with city officials.

I’m excited to invite you to the official Community Streets launch party on March 5th at Rivian in Hayes Valley.

We’re hosting a silent art auction featuring 30 local artists, and I’ll share a short presentation on how Community Streets can help you organize your next block party — and better understand what’s happening in your neighborhood.

Join us — and let’s build safer, cleaner streets together.

It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly a year since we launched Birthday Trees. In its first week alone, the project saw more than 40,000 birthday searches — making it our most successful project ever in terms of engagement.

I’m deeply grateful to Andrew Casteel, Jessica Jenkins, Marc Hedlund, Nadine Weil, and Peter Belden, who generously stepped up to help cover the unexpected $1,200 Google Cloud bill that came with all that traffic.

With Earth Day 2026 and SF Climate Week right around the corner, I’d love to build on that momentum. If you have ideas for how Birthday Trees can help more people discover, appreciate, and protect San Francisco’s urban canopy, please reach out.