Friday, December 01, 2006

hey, that's my space

I've heard Chicago, Cicero, and Berwyn are the only cities in the US where people guard their parking spots with old chairs and stuff. It's a practice not found in any other American community.

2 comments:

Anonymous,  12:18 PM  

Yes, but there are rules for this.

1) It's only acceptable to put "dibs" on a parking space in an area where you customarily can park directly in front of your house; "dibs" is unacceptable as a way to reserve a parking space in congested neighborhoods;
2) You have to use old kitchen chairs, buckets and a broom, or other ugly items to save the space; fancy orange cones are unacceptable;
3) You have to have spent a substantial amount of time digging out your car from the space before you can claim "dibs"; a half-hearted effort does not count;
4) If someone violates "dibs," you can take limited retaliation, but cannot do anything that causes permanent damage; pouring water on the locks (to ice them) is OK, keying the offending car is not;
5) "Dibs" are only effective as long as there is at least 2"+ of snow cover; "dibs" stops on the third day of above-freezing temperature.

I'm sure there are more rules, and some are probably even more neighborhood specific. But it's a great custom in Chicago's bungalow belt, but not so great in gentrifying areas with a lot of non-natives.

Anonymous,  9:35 PM  

If people are going to reserve sections of public property for exclusive private use, they should be forced to compensate the public for that privledge.

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