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John McGovern · the High Cost of Free Parking
September 29th, 2009
Ever wonder why SteelYard Commons (and every single other shopping mall) has SO MANY parking spaces?
The Austin Contrarian presents a short and insightful piece that directly quotes Donald Shoup’s The High Cost of Free Parking regarding the strange method by which planners determine the number of parking spaces that are required to accompany a retail establishment.
A great quote of a quote:
“For example, economists do not define the demand for food as the peak quantity of food consumed at free buffets where overweight diners eat until the last bite has zero utility.”
Does anyone want to do a book club style discussion of Mr. Shoup’s “The High Cost of Free Parking?” Wouldn’t it be great for Cleveland if we could return to the days when the inter-urban trains took us everywhere we needed to go? Well, maybe the first step is to re-examine the reasons why so much of our precious land is occupied by free parking spaces.
Last 5 posts by John McGovern
- NOACA; are you listening? - March 11th, 2010
- Cleveland State University Lab School on Fast Track - September 22nd, 2009
- Re-Imagining Cleveland: Audacious... or Realistic? - June 18th, 2009
- Worth Repeating - December 4th, 2008
- Start-up Weekend in Cleveland? - December 3rd, 2008
September 29th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
I’d definitely like to discuss the book, but I have to finish it first… unfortunately, Shoup had to make it epically long!
It is depressing though to walk past the hundreds of surface spaces in the Warehouse District or the eastern-side of downtown. I like how David Byrne put it recently in the WSJ: parking lots are dead real-estate that bring no life to cities.
September 29th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
I’d really like to discuss it. Getting people out of cars and onto public trans/bikes/their own two feet could have a huge economic impact on Cleveland.
September 30th, 2009 at 8:40 am
rob & lynn: it’s true the book is 700+ pages and i usually cannot make it past the 2nd chapter/conclusion in any of the non-fiction books i read or claim to have read. hence, the book club idea. i need to be engaged! perhaps we can set up something that would enable both face2face and online discussion…
lynn: i totally agree on the economic impact and, IMO, just as important quality of life!