The Texas capital’s new parking law signals a shift in thinking about the relationship between land use, transportation, and housing affordability.

Parking reform’s steady march may have reached a tipping point as Austin became the latest city—and one of the largest—to remove parking requirements citywide. As Kea Wilson writes in Streetsblog, the decision acknowledges parking’s role in perpetuating sprawl and driving up housing costs and is part of the city’s effort to stimulate enough housing production to accommodate its rapidly growing population.
Wilson notes that “Eliminating parking minimums alone, of course, won’t erase car dependency in Austin — and it may not dramatically slow the pace at which developers are building car storage.” But promoting denser development with less parking and more access to transit could increase affordability and help the city reach its goal to get half of the population commuting by transit or other non-car modes within the next two decades.
Read more about this hot topic at the parking reform tag.
FULL STORY: Every Growing City Should Heed Austin’s New Parking Law

Rethinking Redlining
For decades we have blamed 100-year-old maps for the patterns of spatial racial inequity that persist in American cities today. An esteemed researcher says: we’ve got it all wrong.

Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.

California High-Speed Rail's Plan to Right Itself
The railroad's new CEO thinks he can get the project back on track. The stars will need to align this summer.

Savannah Reduces Speed Limits on Almost 100 City Streets
The historic Georgia city is lowering speed limits in an effort to reduce road fatalities.

A Park Reborn: Resilience and Renewal in Fire-Stricken Altadena
Rebuilt in just two months after the devastating Eaton Fire, Loma Alta Park now stands as a symbol of community resilience and renewal, even as some residents hope recovery efforts will continue to support housing stability and long-term equity.

Spain Moves to Ban 66,000 Airbnbs
The national government is requiring the short-term rental operator to remove thousands of illegal listings from its site as part of an effort to stem a growing housing crisis.
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