Burning Man's Big Plan To Reshape A Depressed San Francisco Neighborhood

Burning Man—that once-a-year sojourn to the Nevada desert—is much more than a hedonistic experiment in self-reliance, art, the sharing economy, and psychotropic drugs. It's also an event that has spawned a tight-knit worldwide community that has created a number of Burning Man-related organizations, including Burners Without Borders, Black Rock Solar, and the Black Rock Arts Foundation (a group that brings public art installations to cities). It's only fitting that the Burning Man community's latest do-gooder venture—the Burning Man Project—will work on revitalizing a down-and-out area of San Francisco, Burning Man's home city.

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The Burning Man Project's first grand plan is to turn Central Market into an arts and innovation district, complete with art walks and festivals, as well as pop-up retail stores and galleries (though there are no plans for a giant, flaming effigy). The organization is already in talks with the Mayor's Office of Economic Development about how to turn these ideas into reality. "The immediate idea is of cutting through systems haven't worked before for how to change an area," says Grace.