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Posted by surprisetalk 4 hours ago

Parking lots as economic drains(progressandpoverty.substack.com)
97 points | 102 commentspage 2
bluGill 2 hours ago|
If you don't like parking you need to start with cars: give people a reasonable alternative. Too many are looking at this from a standpoint of "lets just get rid of parking" - without asking what people will do instead. All too often the answer is they will drive someplace in the suburbs instead where they get free parking.

If you want your downtowns to not have parking you need an alternative. In most cases that means you need to improve your transit in the entire city so people can get there.

hamdingers 16 minutes ago||
It's a chicken and egg problem. If you retain the parking but build transit, people will keep doing what they've always done. Partly because people are resistant to change, partly because the areas you can take transit to are still mostly parking lots.

Places like Los Angeles are grappling with 30+ years of investing in transit with minimal changes in modeshare, because they continued investing in automobility at the same rate.

The carrot is great, but we need the stick too.

pclmulqdq 2 hours ago||
Many cities that have a dense core will have big municipal lots and garages to enable people to park somewhere they can walk from. Of course, the first thing urbanists go after is the presence of these lots in "high-value" real estate.
xvokcarts 2 hours ago||
Build it underground if feasible, or build a parking garage with high-economic-contribution units in upper floors.
jessecurry 3 hours ago||
This is such a terrifying vision of the proper scope of government. We shouldn't use government to hurt people, and making someone's property too expensive to continue owning is definitely hurting them.

If you're really concerned with surface parking push the government to stop making it so expensive for companies to develop self-driving technology or to offer transportation services. If it's easier and less expensive for individuals to use transportation that they don't need to park anywhere the need for surface lots vanishes and those owning the property will look for something else to do with it.

hamdingers 12 minutes ago||
This is comically backwards. Widespread car ownership is only possible due to bottomless government subsidy in the first place.

We shouldn't use the government to hurt people, so we should stop subsidizing cars that spew poison and crush children. Right?

jakelazaroff 2 hours ago|||
> We shouldn't use government to hurt people, and making someone's property too expensive to continue owning is definitely hurting them.

But we are using government to hurt people — we are incentivizing (or worse, requiring) land owners to harm the surrounding community by not developing their property. A land value tax would simply shift some of the cost that is already burdening the rest of the community onto the unproductive property owners.

Ajedi32 2 hours ago|||
> those owning the property will look for something else to do with it

Not if there's a law mandating they maintain a certain amount of parking. Eliminating such laws is part of what the article is advocating for.

Other than that I agree.

fwip 1 hour ago||
So, the thing here, is that the property you're worried about is the guy who owns a parking lot, and not the people who are being overcharged on their personal homes to subsidize mister-surface-parking.
1970-01-01 3 hours ago||
Solar panels is the answer. It keeps the people dry in the rain and the power can go right back to the city. Yes, it's not possible for all lots. For a vast majority of them, it's a net win.
spankalee 3 hours ago|
Solar panels do not solve the problem of parking lots being community dead zones. You can put solar panels on anything - it'd be better if it were housing, a store, a pub, etc. than a parking lot.
1970-01-01 2 hours ago||
Walmart allows overnight campers on their lots. Add free power and you get a pop-up community.
spankalee 2 hours ago||
There are almost no Walmarts in urban centers.
1970-01-01 1 hour ago||
Is that a joke? There's literally thousands of Walmarts in cities. https://mapstack.io/map/VkEPZb/map-of-walmart-supercenter-lo...

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MY89q9pnrS-rB8t6Df4T...

fwip 3 hours ago||
Related: there's currently a bill in the NYS legislature which would allow cities to switch partly to a land-value tax. This is a pretty good local article about it: https://centralcurrent.org/how-a-state-bill-with-support-fro...
bryan_w 2 hours ago||
I currently live in a downtown area, and "walkable city" policies like this is why I'm going to move to a big open suburb when my lease is up. It makes life much more of a hassle, especially in cold weather.
trgn 2 hours ago||
i live in one of these cities and it's impossible to explain.
Ajedi32 3 hours ago|
Parking maximums would be just as stupid as parking minimums. Instead of oversupply with inefficient use of space you'll get under supply with businesses starved of customers who can't find a convenient parking space.

Let the market decide how much parking is needed. It'll do a much better job than you ever could.