The High Cost of Free Parking by Donald C. Shoup

It is structured as a criticism of the planning and regulation of parking and recommends that parking be built and allocated according to its fair market value. You'll never look at a parking spot the same way again. The High Cost of Free Parking is an urban planning book by UCLA professor Donald Shoup dealing with the costs of free parking on society. Join the swelling ranks of Shoupistas by picking up this book today. Such measures, according to the Yale-trained economist and UCLA planning professor, will make parking easier and driving less necessary. 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.

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. Planners mandate free parking to alleviate congestion but end up distorting transportation choices, debasing urban design, damaging the economy, and degrading the environment. 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. 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.

The High Cost of Free Parking by Donald C. Shoup