Why cities make too many parking spots, why there is still never "enough" parking, how this ruins walkability, bikeability, and livability - and how to fix it | Slate

Headlines are quick hits from media outlets from Missouri and around the world. Follow the headline link for the full story. The source of this headline says:

Once you see it, it can’t be unseen: the astonishing amount of land this country has devoted to storing cars. In many large downtowns, more than a quarter of properties are used exclusively for parking. This does not count garages nested inside hotels, apartment buildings, and office towers. And it does not count the many miles of curb used for parking.

In 2013 the lead designer of SimCity was asked what, in his team’s measurements of real-world cities, produced the biggest surprise. “Parking lots,” he responded. “We were originally just going to model real cities, but we quickly realized there were way too many parking lots in the real world and that our game was going to be really boring if it was proportional in terms of parking lots.”

Places that are mostly parking are boring. There are likely between 1 and 2 billion parking spaces in this country, enough to pave a small state. . . .

The consequences of this curious situation—parking, parking, everywhere, but not a spot for me—have been disastrous for American cities. More parking encourages more driving, by incentivizing car ownership, pushing locations farther apart, and impairing the creation of safe, efficient infrastructure for transit, bikes, and pedestrians. . . .

Link: 

Why cities make too many parking spots, why there is still never "enough" parking, how this ruins walkability, bikeability, and livability - and how to fix it | Slate

The article is by Henry Grabar who wrote Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the Worl, . Penguin Press: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1984881132/?tag=slatmaga-20