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The High Cost of Free Parking
American drivers park for free on nearly ninety-nine percent of their car trips, and cities require developers to provide ample off-street parking for every new building. The resulting cost? Today we see sprawling cities that are better suited to cars than people and a nationwide fleet of motor vehicles that consume one-eighth of the world's total oil production. Donald Sh...more
Hardcover, 733 pages
Published
March 1st 2005
by American Planning Association
(first published 2004)
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this book was so good! who would have thought that a book about parking could flame the passions? shoup presents an impeccably well-reasoned manifesto about the absurdity of the regulation governing parking throughout the US (and the costs--economic, environmental, aesthetic--that they impose on society as a whole). it is so watertight that i can't believe it hasn't started a revolution already. maybe it's because no one's read it because it is so long. don't be intimidated, it's amazing. read i...more
The scope of this book is utterly astounding. Economically, its argument makes perfect sense: there is no reason for parking to be a public good or legally and irrevocably tied to transactions, so why is it? The depth of Shoup's knowledge on this issue is what gives the book its somewhat frightening length of seven hundred fact-filled "thick" pages, but the length never causes the book to be dense or impenetrable. Some of the data, however, doesn't look "right" to me, so I can't fully endorse it...more
This is book has made me a convert to a somewhat radical view of parking, if you can imagine such a thing, especially for a city dweller, that free parking is a fundamental problem in the U.S. I've even joined The Shoupistas on Facebook, I've been so fired up about it.
So, is it worth it to read a 700-page book on parking? Well, maybe. To be a systematic take-down of the underpinnings of how parking is managed in the U.S. takes some detail. My background is economics, so this appealed to the mar...more
So, is it worth it to read a 700-page book on parking? Well, maybe. To be a systematic take-down of the underpinnings of how parking is managed in the U.S. takes some detail. My background is economics, so this appealed to the mar...more
A great nonfiction book, in my mind, can take a topic no one thinks he's interested in and make finding out about it seem as necessary as breathing air. By that measure The High Cost of Free Parking clocks in as very good, although not nearly as fast-paced or spellbinding as Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do. It's certainly exhaustive and persuasive. Taking 700 pages to present the basic thesis that street parking should cost money and off-street or mandatorily free parking doesn't belong in o...more
May 01, 2012
Lisa
added it
I love this book but someone should really really create a digest version, because, really - 800 pages? Not many people are going to even try to get through 800 pages and we need lots of people to read this book if we're going to change anything.
You have to be willing to wade through a few equations to enjoy this book but if you care about cities, economics, or the environment, this impassioned (in its academic way) plea for rational parking management at the neighborhood level can open your eyes to the potential for a win-win solution to the world's infrastructure and quality of life problems. I came out of it saying, "wow, the world would be a better place if I had the option of driving to San Francisco to pay $12 to park on the stree...more
Shoup makes a convincing case in this book that parking should generally cost more than it does. There are a few equations and tables for readers who might want them, but the author lays out his arguments in language easily accessible to a layperson. The book seems to be designed so that individual sections can be read separately, which means that some bits can be repetitive if you read it from start to finish. Also, it is very focused on the United States in general and California in particular...more
Think parking is a tired, pedestrian subject (pun intended)? Think that it's a boring and insignificant part of our society?
Well, you're wrong. And economist and urban planner Donald Shoup has the data and analysis to back it up. Like the fact that we subsidize free-or-cheap parking in the US to the tune of $127 billion to $374 billion. Compared to the $231 billion we spend on Medicare, and the $349 billion we spend on national defense, it must be concluded that we care about as much about havi...more
Well, you're wrong. And economist and urban planner Donald Shoup has the data and analysis to back it up. Like the fact that we subsidize free-or-cheap parking in the US to the tune of $127 billion to $374 billion. Compared to the $231 billion we spend on Medicare, and the $349 billion we spend on national defense, it must be concluded that we care about as much about havi...more
A very deep book. It's a mammoth tome-- you wouldn't want to drop it on your toe. I don't think I could do it justice if I tried to summarize it, so instead I've pasted the book's table of contents below. Check it out, just the ToC itself is pretty good reading! At least, it gives you a good idea of what the book's all about.
I agree with the general thrust of Shoup's arguments, and he's clearly done a ton of scholarly research to back up everything he says. It's all clearly written and easy to f...more
I agree with the general thrust of Shoup's arguments, and he's clearly done a ton of scholarly research to back up everything he says. It's all clearly written and easy to f...more
Good points made poorly. Lots of redundant, circular writing to get to the point summed up in a seven-line paragraph in the conclusion:
"These three reforms -- charge fair-market prices for curb parking, return the resulting revenue to neighborhoods to pay for public improvements, and remove the requirements for off-street parking -- will align our individual incentives with our common interests, so that private choices will produce public benefits. We can achieve enormous social, economic, and e...more
"These three reforms -- charge fair-market prices for curb parking, return the resulting revenue to neighborhoods to pay for public improvements, and remove the requirements for off-street parking -- will align our individual incentives with our common interests, so that private choices will produce public benefits. We can achieve enormous social, economic, and e...more
The author has definitely thought a lot about parking and cities and cars and how it all affects development. Its a long book and lots of it is repetitive and had plenty of charts and stats, but as you read through it there are many interesting points to think about. Clearly this is a urban planning text book and I believe its useful to read among many other urban planning books on different development topics.
Oct 17, 2009
Denis
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Any citizen who cares about our cities
Shelves:
economics,
non-fiction
I can't say enough about how good this book is. It looks like a lumbering behemoth full of graphs and statistics, but it is extremely well-written, and it will make you see the absurdities of what goes on in city-planning with respect to parking. It's not a lefty diatribe against automobiles, but rather a carefully reasoned argument in favor of removing zoning laws that hide the cost of parking (there really is no free lunch) and allowing supply and demand to set prices.
A lot of people (guided by the title maybe) focus on Shoup's expose of the economic costs of "free" parking - both the thousands of dollars needed to construct and maintain off-street parking and the fuel and time wasted by people searching for curb parking. Just as compelling are his expose of the junk science used to "determine" off-street parking requirements and his recommendations for rectifying the problem (hint: you will pay for what you use). Despite the thickness, this book has somethin...more
Apr 18, 2008
Ideath
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
urban planning students, urbanists, people with a hunger for graphs
Seeing me reading this, Daniel said "Geez, if you're going to read things like that, you might as well go to grad school."
I finally stopped renewing it, though, even though i only got halfway through. I agreed with most of what he had to say, but it just felt so repetitive - could have been a much shorter book. (There should be a shorter, layman's version. Seriously.)
It's good - really good - that he shows his work, especially in showing the ways that planners do not show their work (or do much...more
I finally stopped renewing it, though, even though i only got halfway through. I agreed with most of what he had to say, but it just felt so repetitive - could have been a much shorter book. (There should be a shorter, layman's version. Seriously.)
It's good - really good - that he shows his work, especially in showing the ways that planners do not show their work (or do much...more
Donald Shoup convincingly makes the case that "free" parking distorts people's transportation choices towards making single-occupancy auto trips over the alternatives (walking, biking, busing, etc.). Along the way, he demonstrates that the data used to support our country's parking requirements tend to be arbitrary and not backed up by any scientific evidence, that charging for municipal parking can benefit businesses, and how eliminating parking requirements can revitalize decaying cities.
A great book about prosaic subject on the surface, but one of the most important facing cities today.
Did a great job of explaining why the US needs to change its parking policies. However this could have been explained in 500 fewer pages.
Feb 10, 2010
Sarah
marked it as transportation-econ
Partially read
Didn't realize this is really a textbook-like book when I went looking for it at library. Very interesting data about parking, urban planning and development. Has some similar concepts to charging tolls and congestion pricing on the roads to alleviate gridlock. Amazing to see how off-street parking requirements raise the cost to everyone when parking is "included" in the price of things. Enjoyable read, although it requires some skimming at times since it really is a textbook.
Apr 09, 2013
Christopher
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
had-to-return-to-library
Thorough. Perhaps too thorough. Got the basics of the thesis early on, and was convinced before I was halfway through. Yes, minimum off-street parking requirements and free curb parking are bad for a number of reasons. Will I contact my city councilman about setting up parking benefit districts? Sure. But I still could have done with a shade more brevity.
Bit off more than I can chew with this book. Received plenty of enlightenment though.
An 800 page gorilla that's more interesting than it sounds...really! It is, however, somewhat repetitive at times.
The gist: cities set bizarre and arbitrary parking requirements in their zoning laws and these carry an enormous social, economic, and aesthetic cost that all of us bear in many small (but cumulatively large) ways.
The gist: cities set bizarre and arbitrary parking requirements in their zoning laws and these carry an enormous social, economic, and aesthetic cost that all of us bear in many small (but cumulatively large) ways.
I only had time to dip in and out of this book, but then again, I didn't need convincing. Well written, covering every angle imaginable.
Information is wonderful. It's actually pretty easy reading but it's fairly long however he kept surprising me.
900 pages about why free parking isn't free.
May 23, 2013
Teresa Green
added it
May 22, 2013
Kristen
marked it as to-read
May 21, 2013
Mark N.
marked it as to-read
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Jun 06, 2012 02:08pm