Residents who have chosen to live in older buildings in older neighborhoods depend on the public parking supply and do not want to share it. In these places, parking requirements for new buildings function as a protection racket, forcing new neighbors to pay for what old neighbors get for free on the street. This parking anxiety leads the way to Malthusian thinking about neighborhoods and cities: when the impact of new neighbors is measured out in parking spaces, every place starts to look crowded.
