An annual social media project underscores just how much parking goes unused, even on the busiest shopping days.
To celebrate the upcoming holiday weekend, Strong Towns continues its annual tradition of highlighting wasteful land use in U.S. cities, particularly at malls at shopping centers that, even on the ostensibly busiest shopping day of the year, are hardly full.
As Ben Abramson explains, the organization calls on parking reform advocates to post their own images of vacant parking with the hashtag #BlackFridayParking. “As Strong Towns has shown over the years, thousands of acres have been paved over to prepare for a mythical maximum number of shoppers on Black Friday. From a municipality’s perspective, this land is completely unproductive and may become a liability.”
For Strong Towns, the action is one way to promote policy changes that make more productive use of urban and suburban space. “Here’s hoping we can reconvene at this time next year to celebrate all the cities and towns that have done just that.”
FULL STORY: Black Friday Parking 2024: Help Us Turn Bad Land Use Into Better Policy
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For years, Strong Towns readers have been pointing out the vast empty parking lots on the busiest shopping day of the year as evidence of poor land use regulations. Now the #iwishthisparkingwas hashtag imagines a different future.
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Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Nashville Planning Department
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
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Journal of the American Planning Association