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l33tminion) wrote2025-02-10 10:11 pm
l33tminion) wrote2025-02-10 10:11 pm
A Better Donald: RIP
One sad note from last week was news of the death of Donald Shoup, a titan of urban planning. I discussed his book, The High Cost of Free Parking, on my other blog many years ago. Shoup's studies centered around the thesis that suburban city-planning practices amount to a staggeringly high subsidy paid to drivers, especially as those spread back into urban areas. That subsidy is hidden because it doesn't come as cash transfers but via land use, either through direct allocation of public land, or through regulation of private land use (in particular parking minimums).
This car-centered design for some not great land-use choices in suburban areas, too: In terms of beauty and utility, no one enjoys a parking desert. But when you carry those practices back to urban areas, the subsidy becomes insane. Think of the costs of storing a car, for example, and you get the idea of the kind of value drivers are getting from space dedicated to roads and, especially, free-to-use parking.
This subsidy is high enough to leave the usual market tradeoffs between different transportation alternatives totally deranged, and the ones that are no out-of-pocket cost to drivers get a little further distorted by the "psychology of free". For example, the book describes how an alarming percentage of traffic in some areas is not transit between destinations but rather "cruising" in search of a free street parking spot. In some cases, this car subsidy distorts the market enough that alternatives aren't available. Or alternatives are outright prohibited, for example when someone who would prefer to buy an apartment without parking is unable to do so.
Shoup's central policy proposal was to increase the price of parking until it's only mostly full, similar with related goods. Public funds raised this way can be spent on a variety of things, effectively redirecting the subsidy, presumably to better uses than "more circling the block" or "more sitting in traffic".
This sort of stuff has been in the news lately with NYC's adoption of congestion pricing, which had some immediate, fairly dramatic benefits for drivers and non-drivers alike. Something that another, worse Donald is trying to crush. (Bike lanes, too, for good measure.) In the view of this sort of "conservatism", there is no concern for the effectiveness of markets or the rationality of policy tradeoffs, there is no subsidy too high for the favored mainstream. Despite this continuous opposition, the struggle for sound urban policy and real renewal has come a long way. I hope Donald Shoup's influence on the future of American cities far outlives Donald Trump's.
This car-centered design for some not great land-use choices in suburban areas, too: In terms of beauty and utility, no one enjoys a parking desert. But when you carry those practices back to urban areas, the subsidy becomes insane. Think of the costs of storing a car, for example, and you get the idea of the kind of value drivers are getting from space dedicated to roads and, especially, free-to-use parking.
This subsidy is high enough to leave the usual market tradeoffs between different transportation alternatives totally deranged, and the ones that are no out-of-pocket cost to drivers get a little further distorted by the "psychology of free". For example, the book describes how an alarming percentage of traffic in some areas is not transit between destinations but rather "cruising" in search of a free street parking spot. In some cases, this car subsidy distorts the market enough that alternatives aren't available. Or alternatives are outright prohibited, for example when someone who would prefer to buy an apartment without parking is unable to do so.
Shoup's central policy proposal was to increase the price of parking until it's only mostly full, similar with related goods. Public funds raised this way can be spent on a variety of things, effectively redirecting the subsidy, presumably to better uses than "more circling the block" or "more sitting in traffic".
This sort of stuff has been in the news lately with NYC's adoption of congestion pricing, which had some immediate, fairly dramatic benefits for drivers and non-drivers alike. Something that another, worse Donald is trying to crush. (Bike lanes, too, for good measure.) In the view of this sort of "conservatism", there is no concern for the effectiveness of markets or the rationality of policy tradeoffs, there is no subsidy too high for the favored mainstream. Despite this continuous opposition, the struggle for sound urban policy and real renewal has come a long way. I hope Donald Shoup's influence on the future of American cities far outlives Donald Trump's.