ABSTRACT
In central cities, providing wide streets and free parking proved a major challenge. Many city leaders and urban designers tried to compete with the suburbs by demolishing buildings on a grand scale to make room for a mixture of freeways, modernist high-rises on superblocks, and vast expanses of parking. While parking and car use have increased in a majority of American cities, the authors work also offers important counter examples. Despite their pronounced differences, it is important to first recognize that the cities in this study were once very similar both in terms of built form and travel behavior. To understand the extent to which the physical changes in cities affected travel behavior, the authors compared the growth of parking in each city to commuting records from the United States Census. The physical transformation of cities and the loss of valuable, active urban land are probably the most visible consequences of urban parking growth.
