At the newly completed Hidden Garden Steps (16th Avenue, Kirkham to Lawton) you'll see individual names (first two pix), businesses, parks and groups, and what I liked best, the messages: pix 3 through 10. Photos don't do it justice; visit this in person if you can.
No doubt there are plenty of people out there who'd enjoy participating and who also could afford to do so (wish I could). Not only could various neighborhoods create their own mosaic masterpieces, but also some of our parks. How much better to improve and beautify an urban park by turning their public stairways into works of art than is the present destructive trend of unnecessary tree-felling and otherwise messing excessively with Ma Nature in the name of park "improvements."
Picture, for example, the 100 wide steps into Pacific Heights' Alta Plaza Park as a good candidate for a tile-job. Wondering when the rest of the Lincoln Park stairs will be completed (off 33rd Ave. & California up to the golf course and a trail to Lands End).
More pix: 11 through 22. Alongside the 148 steps are nicely tiered plantings. At the top is a micro-labyrinth and view: pics 23, 24.
Lastly, a couple of THEN pix from 2006: pix 25, 26.
The other tiled stairway in this 'hood is a few blocks from here, Moraga/16th, 2005, 163 steps. At the top, the long zigzag stairway to Grandview Park's summit invites you to continue your upward climb.