The High Cost of Free Parking
The High Cost of Free Parking is an urban planning book by UCLA professor Donald Shoup dealing with the costs of free parking on society. It is structured as a criticism of the planning and regulation of parking and recommends that parking be built and allocated according to its fair market value. It incorporates elements of Shoup's Georgist philosophy.
Stats for nerds
45recommend
100mentions
61people
2009–2026years
66% recommend33% neutral1% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- More specifically, free for the person parking.
All the rest of society pays massive amounts in construction costs:
> adding tens of thousands of dollars per housing unit and, in some cases, increasing total construction costs by more than 50%.
This is from a recent update to Donald Shoup's estimates from the classic "The high cost of free parking": https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9f88x32n
- Cars, and in particular, parking, kills cities. Parking is sponge that sucks all the life out of places.
The High Cost of Free Parking is an incredible book that shows exactly how awful parking has been for society.
- The High Cost of Free Parking is a wonderful book and I would recommend it to anyone. Parking - and car-centric development - shapes our day to day lives in tremendously powerful ways.
- Donald’s book The High Cost of Free Parking is about this! Really great read, highly recommended.
Rest in peace.
- I read the high cost of free parking last year and it permanently changed how I see the world.
In particular...the book shows how supply and demand still affects behavior, even when we don't culturally like to believe that it does.
If you have a say in the parking decisions in your city...please read the book. And if not, try to set the parking cost so there is, on average, one free space per block. Your city will be a better place if you do!
Thanks professor Shoup...rest in peace.
- You're welcome!
The topical book to recommend here is obviously The High Cost of Free Parking.
https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193...
