4 ms·

A Brief Cultural History of the Parking Lot

46 points by wallflower 6y ago

throw0101a 6y ago
A good book on how the automobile came to (the American) city streets: > Before the advent of the automobile, users of city streets were diverse and included children at play and pedestrians at large. By 1930, most streets were primarily a motor thoroughfares where children did not belong and where pedestrians were condemned as "jaywalkers." In Fighting Traffic, Peter Norton argues that to accommodate automobiles, the American city required not only a physical change but also a social one: before the city could be reconstructed for the sake of motorists, its streets had to be socially reconstructed as places where motorists belonged. It was not an evolution, he writes, but a bloody and sometimes violent revolution. Norton describes how street users struggled to define and redefine what streets were for. He examines developments in the crucial transitional years from the 1910s to the 1930s, uncovering a broad anti-automobile campaign that reviled motorists as "road hogs" or "speed demons" and cars as "juggernauts" or "death cars." He considers the perspectives of all users--pedestrians, police (who had to become "traffic cops"), street railways, downtown businesses, traffic engineers (who often saw cars as the problem, not the solution), and automobile promoters. He finds that pedestrians and parents campaigned in moral terms, fighting for "justice." […] * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2924825-fighting-traffic https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2924825-fighting-traffic See also the book: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Cost_of_Free_Parking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Cost_of_Free_Parking
- paxys 6y ago
  It's fascinating to see the differences in how automobile traffic was accepted in different cities and cultures. America is pretty much as described in the above passage. On the other hand a good chunk of European cities are decidedly pedestrian and bicycle friendly. And the fight is still ongoing across South/SE Asia, where cars, motorcycles, pedestrians (and sometimes animals) all claim right of way.
- sarora27 6y ago
  This reminds me of a cool video i saw the other day of San Francisco's Market Street in 1906: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO_1AdYRGW8&ab_channel=DenisShiryaev https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO_1AdYRGW8&ab_channel=Denis... It's so interesting to see how people, street cars, horse & carts, and cars all seemed to share the road in what seemed like a controlled chaos manner
  - wolfgang42 6y ago
    Note that this video was apparently partly staged, with cars circling around to come by the camera again, so it’s probably not entirely representative of actual traffic patterns at the time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Trip_Down_Market_Street https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Trip_Down_Market_Street (The Wikipedia article also has an original scan of the video, without the AI confabulation and added sound effects, or a higher quality version with added sound here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2u4J7Dbouo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2u4J7Dbouo)
    - sarora27 6y ago
      Oh my! thank you for enlightening me!
      - wolfgang42 6y ago
        Of course! It’s still a cool view into the past and I’d not seen it before, so thank you for posting it.
sushicalculus 6y ago
Whenever I think of suburbia, I think of larger homes, malls, and highways. It makes sense that suburbia got parking lots while downtowns got parking garages ... but I had never really given the parking lot much thought until this article
- throw0101a 6y ago
  > while downtowns got parking garages Let me introduce you to pre-condo boom downtown Toronto, Canada: * https://www.blogto.com/city/2011/10/that_time_when_toronto_was_a_city_of_parking_lots/ https://www.blogto.com/city/2011/10/that_time_when_toronto_w... The rise of lots occurred after the construction of the downtown Gardner highway: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gardiner_Expressway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gardiner_Expressway Nowadays land is too valuable to be flat, and so most/all parking lots have been turned into towers (condo(minium) and commercial): * http://www.mapto.ca/maps/parkinglots http://www.mapto.ca/maps/parkinglots
prawn 6y ago
Something I find interesting is whether the better layout for a large store complex is an island of shops surrounded by car parking, or a donut of shops (with street frontage and displays) with interior parking. Former provides a quick view of accessible parking and minimises in-mall walking whereas the latter means stores can promote their wares to passing cars more easily. A couple of recent big box store builds in Australia I've noticed (Bunnings in SA) are one-brand warehouses built on top of a single storey of car parking. Once in the store and even in the outdoor garden centre, it feels identical to older ground level stores. More compact footprint, car parking is protected from the elements, and the store has a branded facade on the street.
- jbay808 6y ago
  The 'donut' is also much more welcoming and safe for pedestrian traffic, who don't have to cross the parking lot twice to get to the post office/Starbucks/etc.
ohples 6y ago
Parking lots don't have culture, they take from it.
- clwk 6y ago
  Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you got Til its gone
  - shardinator 6y ago
    Exactly
poma88 6y ago
The most horrendous spaces of the US, showing the car lobby successes on PR, ond how they influenced the average mindset

46 points by wallflower 6y ago

A good book on how the automobile came to (the American) city streets: > Before the advent of the automobile, users of city streets were diverse and included children at play and pedestrians at large. By 1930, most streets were primarily a motor thoroughfares where children did not belong and where pedestrians were condemned as "jaywalkers." In Fighting Traffic, Peter Norton argues that to accommodate automobiles, the American city required not only a physical change but also a social one: before the city could be reconstructed for the sake of motorists, its streets had to be socially reconstructed as places where motorists belonged. It was not an evolution, he writes, but a bloody and sometimes violent revolution. Norton describes how street users struggled to define and redefine what streets were for. He examines developments in the crucial transitional years from the 1910s to the 1930s, uncovering a broad anti-automobile campaign that reviled motorists as "road hogs" or "speed demons" and cars as "juggernauts" or "death cars." He considers the perspectives of all users--pedestrians, police (who had to become "traffic cops"), street railways, downtown businesses, traffic engineers (who often saw cars as the problem, not the solution), and automobile promoters. He finds that pedestrians and parents campaigned in moral terms, fighting for "justice." […] * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2924825-fighting-traffic https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2924825-fighting-traffic See also the book: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Cost_of_Free_Parking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Cost_of_Free_Parking

paxys 6y ago
It's fascinating to see the differences in how automobile traffic was accepted in different cities and cultures. America is pretty much as described in the above passage. On the other hand a good chunk of European cities are decidedly pedestrian and bicycle friendly. And the fight is still ongoing across South/SE Asia, where cars, motorcycles, pedestrians (and sometimes animals) all claim right of way.
sarora27 6y ago
This reminds me of a cool video i saw the other day of San Francisco's Market Street in 1906: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO_1AdYRGW8&ab_channel=DenisShiryaev https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO_1AdYRGW8&ab_channel=Denis... It's so interesting to see how people, street cars, horse & carts, and cars all seemed to share the road in what seemed like a controlled chaos manner
- wolfgang42 6y ago
  Note that this video was apparently partly staged, with cars circling around to come by the camera again, so it’s probably not entirely representative of actual traffic patterns at the time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Trip_Down_Market_Street https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Trip_Down_Market_Street (The Wikipedia article also has an original scan of the video, without the AI confabulation and added sound effects, or a higher quality version with added sound here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2u4J7Dbouo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2u4J7Dbouo)
  - sarora27 6y ago
    Oh my! thank you for enlightening me!
    - wolfgang42 6y ago
      Of course! It’s still a cool view into the past and I’d not seen it before, so thank you for posting it.

sushicalculus 6y ago

Whenever I think of suburbia, I think of larger homes, malls, and highways. It makes sense that suburbia got parking lots while downtowns got parking garages ... but I had never really given the parking lot much thought until this article

throw0101a 6y ago
> while downtowns got parking garages Let me introduce you to pre-condo boom downtown Toronto, Canada: * https://www.blogto.com/city/2011/10/that_time_when_toronto_was_a_city_of_parking_lots/ https://www.blogto.com/city/2011/10/that_time_when_toronto_w... The rise of lots occurred after the construction of the downtown Gardner highway: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gardiner_Expressway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gardiner_Expressway Nowadays land is too valuable to be flat, and so most/all parking lots have been turned into towers (condo(minium) and commercial): * http://www.mapto.ca/maps/parkinglots http://www.mapto.ca/maps/parkinglots

prawn 6y ago

Something I find interesting is whether the better layout for a large store complex is an island of shops surrounded by car parking, or a donut of shops (with street frontage and displays) with interior parking. Former provides a quick view of accessible parking and minimises in-mall walking whereas the latter means stores can promote their wares to passing cars more easily. A couple of recent big box store builds in Australia I've noticed (Bunnings in SA) are one-brand warehouses built on top of a single storey of car parking. Once in the store and even in the outdoor garden centre, it feels identical to older ground level stores. More compact footprint, car parking is protected from the elements, and the store has a branded facade on the street.

jbay808 6y ago
The 'donut' is also much more welcoming and safe for pedestrian traffic, who don't have to cross the parking lot twice to get to the post office/Starbucks/etc.

ohples 6y ago

Parking lots don't have culture, they take from it.

clwk 6y ago
Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you got Til its gone
- shardinator 6y ago
  Exactly

poma88 6y ago

The most horrendous spaces of the US, showing the car lobby successes on PR, ond how they influenced the average mindset