City planners are questioning the point of parking garages

For the past century, the public and private sector appear to have agreed on one thing: the more parking, the better.

As a result, cities were built up in ways that devoted valuable space to storing cars, did little to accommodate people who don’t own cars, and forced developers to build expensive parking structures that increased the cost of living.

Two assumptions undergird urban parking policy: Without convenient parking, car owners would be reluctant to patronize businesses; and absent a dedicated parking spot for their vehicle, they’d be less likely to rent and buy homes. Because parcels of urban land are usually small and pricey, developers will build multistory garages. And so today, a glut of these bulky concrete boxes clutter America’s densely populated cities.

We have been studying urban development and parking for decades. The car’s grip over city planning has been difficult to dislodge, despite a host of costs to the environment and to the quality of life for many city dwellers.

But we see signs that that’s finally starting to change.

A relic of the car craze

As car ownership exploded in the first half of the 20th century, municipalities started to mandate a minimum number of parking spaces whenever new stores or apartment complexes were built.

Many of these regulations continue to bluntly guide development.

For example, Boulder, Colorado, still requires one parking space per apartment, one spot for every three restaurant seats and one spot for every 175 square feet of retail space. Your community’s zoning regulations are likely all too similar.

Yet parking garages and parking lots end up using precious land to house cars instead of people at a time when cities are confronted with a severe housing shortage and skyrocketing housing costs. Only 20 percent of homes for sale are affordable to people making average incomes.