Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World

by Henry Grabar

The problem, Shoup argued, wasn’t that there wasn’t enough parking. It was that it wasn’t priced properly. Curbside parking in the best locations tended to be free, while cavernous garages a few blocks away charged entry. Retail employees and office workers arrived early and took the best street spots, and when customers or clients arrived, they found no space at the curb. Studies estimated that approximately 30 percent of traffic in congested central business districts consisted of cars looking for parking. Commercial property owners heard these complaints and lobbied local governments to build more off-site garages—or demanded that rival merchants build their own private lots. These fiefdoms did comparatively little to assuage the overall supply crisis, though, since drivers often looked first to park at the curb. They also contributed to traffic, since even running nearby errands required moving the car from one private lot to the next. This was the high cost of free parking. Charge higher rates for the best spots and lower rates for the worst spots, and everyone would fall into place according to the amount of time they needed to park and what the parking was worth to them.