One of the more frustrating aspects of modern urban living undoubtedly is parking. If you live in Boston and own a car you've probably been towed, maybe more than once, and certainly faced the wrath of those roaming parking cops.

Hence the creation of the resident parking permit -- a tool used by most densely populated municipalities in our region to regulate parking patterns. Every car owner has one, but most pay it very little mind. We don't care where it comes from, only that it allows us to park in front of our house without hassle. We stick in on our rear window once a year then mostly forget about it.

The City of Cambridge, however, doesn't want you to ignore it. In fact they want you to be invested in the residential parking permit design process. A notice on the City's website announces that:

The City of Cambridge Department of Traffic, Parking & Transportation has begun accepting digital photographs of city buildings and historic Cambridge landmarks for the 2006 Residential Parking Permit Photo Contest.

Last year's winner was Cantabrigian David Maloney whose picture of the Weeks Bridge appears on the 2005 permit. The announcement says nothing of residency requirements and although Maloney is a Cambridge resident, it's unlikely that you must reside there to win.

The popularization of blogs has been an important historic event over the past year, so we're considering submitting a screen shot of Bostonist for consideration.

The photo displayed above appears on the 2005 permit and is used courtesy of the City of Cambridge