Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World

by Henry Grabar

We are what we build, first because our buildings are an expression of our values, and second because, in time, those buildings come to set the patterns of our lives.

In Texas, beaches are presumed to be parking lots, and local authorities can keep cars off the sand only if they provide a parking space for every fifteen feet of beach closed to traffic.

By square footage, there is more housing for each car in the United States than there is housing for each person.

Los Angeles banned itself.

(Shortly after we spoke, he read The Great Gatsby—is it just me, he thought, or is this book all about housing and cars?)

“Oh so you’re into BDSM?? Have you ever tried to find parking at Trader Joe’s on a Saturday afternoon??”