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Picture the middle of nowhere: There is a farm supply store, and the nearest other building is a mile away. There is no freeloader problem because nobody will w

by burfog 8y ago

Picture the middle of nowhere: There is a farm supply store, and the nearest other building is a mile away. There is no freeloader problem because nobody will walk a mile. If parking is not provided for every possible customer, the potential customers will be unable to shop. Worse yet, they will get in the habit of going elsewhere, and so they won't visit even on days when there is room to park. Thus there is no need to enforce a minimum. In a dense location, each business can be reasonably expected to build parking... because the city requires it. Businesses don't get the option to ignore the city regulations. In general, businesses don't survive without parking minimums. Businesses die all the time, falling into bankruptcy. There are a few that can survive on tourist foot traffic in the more-famous cities, selling junk like postcards and T-shirts. Businesses with enormous per-visit revenue can of course provide valet parking, so a 4-star Michelin restaurant might work. You're going to have a bad time running a Home Depot in a city without parking minimums.

setr 8y ago
>In a dense location, each business can be reasonably expected to build parking... because the city requires it. Well, no, thats my point. A dense location... is dense. There’s not much room for n parking per business, at least directly where the shop is located. You meet the requirement by doing as the article does: destroying dense locations and forcing them to be sparse. Pretending that they live in the middle of nowhere, when in fact they’re in the heart of the city. Parking garages/lots (lots of parking, shared by all stores) is a clearly more ideal solution: its much more compact. And there’s no real reason parking has to be located directly next to the businesses themselves; just nearby enough to make walking (like, well, any shopping mall) So then you have the question of who pays for it — in a shopping mall, its built in by the mall. In a city designated shoping center, its built in by the city. But those are totally pre-planned situation. In a more organic environment, where parking minimums are meant to operate, it would either be a collective decision... or its independent of the businesses, and expanded as necessary, as any private garage works. And I’ve personally seen examples of this situation in LA, chicago, mumbai.... and probably any city that manages to exist without minimums. The only way you can believe that parking has to have a minimum is if you believe parking must be free. But thats nowhere near true. In most cities, but not in a mall, its not free. The freeloading problem in a dense location is trivially resolved by looking beyond the individual businesses, and realizing that parking itself is a market. And the belief that its absolutely required is trivially disolved by... realizing parking minimums are already not the default, and so pretty much any successful city/area will constitute an example of it not being a necessity Home depot/ikea are self-incentivized to build parking for themselves, because regardless of minimums, they tend to carve out a huge plot of land for themselves and exist independently of other businesss. They don’t sit in dense locations by their nature, and I don’t think you really want them to, and they barely share parking by their nature.
- neuralRiot 8y ago
  Maybe a good solution would be to have zoning systems for parking requirements so in dense areas the city would manage the parking making it shared and charge business according to their capacity or property area and at the same time charge users according to demand.
  - setr 8y ago
    In a sparse location, with one or a few buildings off on their own, parking is free and self-incentivized, because there's simply no way around it (the business needs parking more than people need the business) In an artificially dense location (eg parking mall/center), parking is free and its owned and maintained by the owners of the overall location, paid for by the business's rent. In an organically dense location (eg chicago downtown, chinatowns, etc), a parking-market will inevitably exist, and garages/lots will be privately owned & maintained, paid for by, well, the price of parking. Parking minimums seem to me to be an artificial solution to an artificial problem: the only time it might be effective is in the last case, and that's only if you believe parking should always be free. If you accept the parking-market, as most cities do, the market solves parking without issue. Zoning would just be a bandage solution, vulnerable to many edge cases, and likely lead to similar and perhaps even brand new mistaken outcomes.

by burfog 8y ago

setr 8y ago

>In a dense location, each business can be reasonably expected to build parking... because the city requires it. Well, no, thats my point. A dense location... is dense. There’s not much room for n parking per business, at least directly where the shop is located. You meet the requirement by doing as the article does: destroying dense locations and forcing them to be sparse. Pretending that they live in the middle of nowhere, when in fact they’re in the heart of the city. Parking garages/lots (lots of parking, shared by all stores) is a clearly more ideal solution: its much more compact. And there’s no real reason parking has to be located directly next to the businesses themselves; just nearby enough to make walking (like, well, any shopping mall) So then you have the question of who pays for it — in a shopping mall, its built in by the mall. In a city designated shoping center, its built in by the city. But those are totally pre-planned situation. In a more organic environment, where parking minimums are meant to operate, it would either be a collective decision... or its independent of the businesses, and expanded as necessary, as any private garage works. And I’ve personally seen examples of this situation in LA, chicago, mumbai.... and probably any city that manages to exist without minimums. The only way you can believe that parking has to have a minimum is if you believe parking must be free. But thats nowhere near true. In most cities, but not in a mall, its not free. The freeloading problem in a dense location is trivially resolved by looking beyond the individual businesses, and realizing that parking itself is a market. And the belief that its absolutely required is trivially disolved by... realizing parking minimums are already not the default, and so pretty much any successful city/area will constitute an example of it not being a necessity Home depot/ikea are self-incentivized to build parking for themselves, because regardless of minimums, they tend to carve out a huge plot of land for themselves and exist independently of other businesss. They don’t sit in dense locations by their nature, and I don’t think you really want them to, and they barely share parking by their nature.

neuralRiot 8y ago
Maybe a good solution would be to have zoning systems for parking requirements so in dense areas the city would manage the parking making it shared and charge business according to their capacity or property area and at the same time charge users according to demand.
- setr 8y ago
  In a sparse location, with one or a few buildings off on their own, parking is free and self-incentivized, because there's simply no way around it (the business needs parking more than people need the business) In an artificially dense location (eg parking mall/center), parking is free and its owned and maintained by the owners of the overall location, paid for by the business's rent. In an organically dense location (eg chicago downtown, chinatowns, etc), a parking-market will inevitably exist, and garages/lots will be privately owned & maintained, paid for by, well, the price of parking. Parking minimums seem to me to be an artificial solution to an artificial problem: the only time it might be effective is in the last case, and that's only if you believe parking should always be free. If you accept the parking-market, as most cities do, the market solves parking without issue. Zoning would just be a bandage solution, vulnerable to many edge cases, and likely lead to similar and perhaps even brand new mistaken outcomes.