The Illusion Of Free Parking

"[A} new book with the policy-wonky title 'The High Cost of Free Parking,' published by the American Planning Association. ...offers a 'comprehensive examination' of the parking customs of urban Americans, the fruit of 25 years of research by Donald Shoup, a professor of urban planning at the University of California, Los Angeles.

There is, he contends, no such thing as free parking. To him, free parking represents lost revenue, squandered land and polluted air. To him, parking garages are not an amenity, but an antisocial car subsidy. If parking is scarce, Dr. Shoup says, that means it is underpriced. He calls for unleashing market forces: If the price of parking is high enough, there will be vacancies."