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Oregon eliminated burdensome parking regulations in most larger cities and: it's fine. Many home builders still add parking to new projects because there is ma
by davidw 2y ago
Oregon eliminated burdensome parking regulations in most larger cities and: it's fine.
Many home builders still add parking to new projects because there is market demand for it - and they are also competing for tenants or buyers against existing housing which has parking.
But there is now the flexibility to do some projects without parking, which really helps at the affordable end of the spectrum, and is a good fit for more walkable locations.
BTW, Nolan Gray, cited as the author, has a book out himself that's really approachable and good reading if you're interested in cities: https://islandpress.org/books/arbitrary-lines https://islandpress.org/books/arbitrary-lines
- cyberax 2y ago[flagged]
- triceratops 2y agoPrices going up is a clear market signal of desirability.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- speed_spread 2y agoDesirability as housing or as investment? Because speculation has a tendency to overlook the little things that make a quality product.
- davidw 2y agoHousing as an investment is driven by scarcity. Commit to making housing abundant and it starts being a much less interesting investment.
- triceratops 2y agoIf the housing isn't desirable for housing, why would it go up as an investment?
- recursive 2y agoBecause your analysis indicates that many other people think it will go up even more later.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- davidw 2y agoOregon has a severe housing shortage: https://www.opb.org/article/2025/01/28/oregon-needs-to-build-29500-more-homes-each-year-chief-economist-says/ https://www.opb.org/article/2025/01/28/oregon-needs-to-build... That is the root cause of homelessness: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/everything-you-think-you-know-about https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/everything-you-think-you-know-... This video also does a good job of explaining it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQW4W1_SJmc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQW4W1_SJmc Eliminating costly parking regulations are quite helpful for building the kinds of housing that will help people get out of homelessness.
- cyberax 2y ago[flagged]
- davidw 2y agoThis is clearly why people pay less for housing in locales like New York or San Francisco with very efficient land use than, say, rural Oklahoma.
- Ajedi32 2y agoSan Fransisco housing is cheaper than rural Oklahoma? Source, please. San Francisco is notorious for being an extremely expensive place to live. In my experience, housing outside cities (suburbs or rural areas) is usually much, much cheaper per square foot than housing in metro areas.
- nayuki 2y ago> Homelessness is through the roof Allocating space for car parking does not help address homelessness. In fact, it hurts it a lot.
- cyberax 2y agoNope. Allocating space for cars and prohibiting the orgy of real estate densification improves the homelessness situation. It puts less stress on people to move into The Downtown, so they are more likely to stay in more reasonably-priced areas.
- howenterprisey 2y agoThe argument that density puts stress on people to move _towards_ that density seems to me to have the direction of causation reversed. People look at prices when they move, not density.
- cyberax 2y agoNo. I have the causality arrow correct. Density forces people to move, it acts as a black hole of misery. The _main_ reason people move ever closer to Downtowns is economic. They _have_ to do it, because that's where the high-paying jobs are.
- sandworm101 2y agoOften "flexibility" simply becomes providing less parking to make room for more units on a given lot, effectively outsourcing to the surrounding community. I lived in an area that allowed "senior" developments for 55+ people. As old people are all retired and so do not commute/drive, there were far fewer necessary parking spots and the development was deemed not to increase local traffic. Without the need to commute to work, upgrades to mass transit were deemed unnecessary. Total BS. All the care providers and visiting families ended up parking at the nearby mall. And retired people still drive. They don't commute to work but they don't sit still at home all day either. The whole pack of lies was simply a way to bypass parking regs and squeeze more condos onto the lot to the detriment of the surrounding community.
- davidw 2y agoMalls usually have huge, empty parking lots, so it sounds like it's a win: More people got a home to live in that costs less, and some formerly squandered land was better utilized. And if you start doing other things like legalizing corner stores and neighborhood businesses, rather than designing everything for the automobile Uber alles, maybe some of those people will find they don't need a car. Also, policy changes almost never happen in one nice tidy package where you do all the things at once, like eliminating expensive and arbitrary parking rules, adding a bunch of transit, re-legalizing neighborhood commercial, right-sizing roads, etc... so there are going to be fits and starts and bumps along the way. Still worth doing though.
- potato3732842 2y agoTo be fair, those mall parking lots were busy at one point in history.
- davidw 2y agoStrong Towns had people take pictures on 'Black Friday' of mall parking lots, just to see. Many of them still had a ton of excess capacity.
- m463 2y agoThere's gotta be some middle ground. I think of san francisco, where the streets are clogged with people circling the block and folks are double parked everywhere.
- joshlemer 2y agoThe solution, as Donald Shoup advocated, is to raise (or in some cases, lower, and in general, have it be dynamic) parking rates to market-clearing prices for parking spots such that there are is always one (but not too much more) free spot available on the block.
- immibis 2y agoHow does this benefit poor people who could barely afford their homes and can barely afford to commute to their job halfway across the city by car? If applied to an area that already is only middle-class people, then sure. Or resident parking permits.
- davidw 2y agoPart of what it allows is more housing (something that places like San Fran fail miserably at) because it's not constrained by having to provide 1.5 spots per bedroom or whatever arbitrary number. And more housing is what is needed to contain housing costs.
- vorador 2y agoMost poor people don't own their house and often don't have a car – if you do own both you're middle class.
- potato3732842 2y agoThat's true but I'm not really worried about them. I'm worried about the people who are doing everything right and about to not be poor. Increasing the cost of every rung of the ladder, like for example slogging out a shitty commute and parking situation for some time decreases the number of people who make it up the ladder. It's almost like a pseudo welfare cliff. Public policy should strive to avoid doing stuff like that. I'm of the opinion that when public goods are cheap enough to face shortages all the time the market economy steps up because better off people will spend more to save time/hassle. The problem is when things are expensive enough to kick out a lot of people, but not enough people actually alleviate shortage, which is basically how it currently goes with parking.
- AcerbicZero 2y agoMight be worth taking a drive through formerly "suburb" neighborhoods that are now a battle royal for street parking thanks to high density units with zero parking. I mean, it is portland, and they will do it wrong no matter what, but still; if you expect the people we've been mass producing to handle this well going forward, I've got bad news for you.
- davidw 2y agoPeople are the "big rocks" in cities. Housing and businesses for people is more important than storing automobiles. If there's not enough free street parking, charge more. That's part of what Shoup talked about.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- mperham 2y agoPortland's problem is that they aren't charging enough (or at all) for curb parking.
- freddie_mercury 2y agoIf a city offers land for free, what incentive is there to pay for building parking on your property? Free is always going to outcompete non-free. The answer is to get rid of free on street parking.
- komboozcha 2y agoIf only there were other ways to get around in high-density areas that didn't necessitate a private vehicle. Could we all brainstorm some ideas?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- pkulak 2y agoNear my house in Portland a 6-unit complex just went up on a lot that was vacant for at least a decade prior. Three blocks from there they are building at least twice as many units on what was an abandoned church and parking lot. Neither project provides any parking, and the units are cheap. Something like 320k for a brand new 1000 sq-ft build. It’s so amazing.
- davidw 2y agoThat's awesome! And, given current prices, a great opportunity for someone to own a home they otherwise might not have been able to. Here's an article about some of the other things happening: https://www.sightline.org/2023/06/30/parking-mandates-are-vanishing-across-oregon/ https://www.sightline.org/2023/06/30/parking-mandates-are-va...
- noja 2y agoDoes Portland have good public transport?
- 0_____0 2y agoIt's spread out but I found the bus system very usable when I visited.
- pkulak 2y agoHit and miss. Good for North America, horrible compared to Europe. Where these are located, it's a bit of a train desert, but the bus system is pretty good. There are three lines within short walking distance, and they go to pretty good destinations, and trains. But on the other end, there's still street parking, and it's plentiful. I'd say Portland is a good 1-car city, if you're a family. Lot's of stuff is one bus away, but you definitely get into situations where some appointment is 1:30 away by bus, 20 minutes by car, so it's nice to have options. If I was a bachelor, I'd be fine with no car, and using a bike or cab when needed.
- friendzis 2y agoHN on USian real estate / urban development: this experiment has been running for two weeks and it's fine. Also HN on USian real estate / urban development: everyone prefers this district developed two hundred years ago, because it was not fine.