ABSTRACT

One of the American Planning Association’s most popular and influential books is finally in paperback, with a new preface from the author on how thinking about parking has changed since this book was first published. In this no-holds-barred treatise, Donald Shoup argues that free parking has contributed to auto dependence, rapid urban sprawl, extravagant energy use, and a host of other problems. Planners mandate free parking to alleviate congestion but end up distorting transportation choices, debasing urban design, damaging the economy, and degrading the environment. Ubiquitous free parking helps explain why our cities sprawl on a scale fit more for cars than for people, and why American motor vehicles now consume one-eighth of the world's total oil production. But it doesn't have to be this way. Shoup proposes new ways for cities to regulate parking – namely, charge fair market prices for curb parking, use the resulting revenue to pay for services in the neighborhoods that generate it, and remove zoning requirements for off-street parking. Such measures, according to the Yale-trained economist and UCLA planning professor, will make parking easier and driving less necessary. Join the swelling ranks of Shoupistas by picking up this book today. You'll never look at a parking spot the same way again.

chapter 1|18 pages

The Twenty-first Century Parking Problem

part I|253 pages

Planning for Free Parking

chapter 2|53 pages

Unnatural Selection

chapter 3|43 pages

The Pseudoscience of Planning for Parking

chapter 4|8 pages

An Analogy: Ancient Astronomy

chapter 5|58 pages

A Great Planning Disaster

chapter 6|20 pages

The Cost of Required Parking Spaces

chapter 9|22 pages

Public Parking in Lieu of Private Parking

chapter 10|21 pages

Reduce Demand Rather than Increase Supply

part II|103 pages

Cruising for Parking

chapter 11|20 pages

Cruising

chapter 12|25 pages

The Right Price for Curb Parking

chapter 13|26 pages

Choosing to Cruise

chapter 14|29 pages

California Cruising

part III|210 pages

Cashing in on Curb Parking

chapter 15|17 pages

Buying Time at the Curb

chapter 16|36 pages

Turning Small Change into Big Changes

chapter 17|38 pages

Taxing Foreigners Living Abroad

chapter 18|34 pages

Let Prices Do the Planning

chapter 19|53 pages

The Ideal Source of Local Public Revenue

chapter 20|20 pages

Unbundled Parking

chapter 21|8 pages

Time for a Paradigm Shift

part IV|19 pages

Conclusion

chapter 22|17 pages

Changing the Future