What to do about parking

A book entitled Rethinking the Parking Lot, due for release in March, inspired New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman to write a long essay arguing, "It's time to take parking lots seriously, as public spaces."

The book is by Eran Ben-Joseph, a professor of urban planning at MIT whose earlier book, The Code of the City: Standards and the Hidden Language of Place Making, won praise in New Urban News in March 2006.

Estimates vary as to how many parking spaces exist in the United States. Ben-Joseph settles on a compromise figure: 500 million spaces, occupying roughly 3,590 square miles—an area larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined. They take their most obnoxious form in the broad parking lots with which every American is familiar.

Consequently, says Kimmelman, "we need to think more about these lots as public spaces, as part of the infrastructure of our streets and sidewalks, places for various activities that may change and evolve." Hundreds of parking lots have already been taken over by farmers' markets, street-hockey games, teenager partiers, and church services. That trend should be encouraged, he says.

Kimmelman reports on architect Renzo Piano's success in introducing nature, in an orderly way, into the parking lot of a Fiat plant in Turin, Italy. And he tells about an interesting proposal for the parking lot of a faded shopping mall in Dutchess County, New York. 

He urges cities to abandon outmoded zoning codes that require specific rations of parking space per housing unit or per square foot of retail space. In these thoughts, Kimmelman promotes the thinking of UCLA planning professor Donald Shoup, even though Shoup is not named in the article.

Kimmelman tells of garages demanded by the New York City that stand largely empty. All in all, the generously illustrated piece by Kimmelman usefully focuses attention on opportunities lost and on the need for better thinking about a ubiquitous element of cities and suburbs.

For more in-depth coverage on this topic:

• to Better! Cities & Towns to read all of the articles (print+online) on implementation of greener, stronger, cities and towns.

• See the issue of New Urban News (as our print newsletter was known for 15 years). Topics: HUD’s Choice Neighborhoods, Parking reform, transit-oriented parking policy, Obama vs. Congress, West Virginia town revitalizes, suburb remakes its center, ecological dividend, cul-de-sac makeover, thoroughfare manual, and much more.

• Get , packed with more than 800 informative photos, plans, tables, and other illustrations, this book is the best single guide to implementing better cities and towns.

• See the issue of New Urban News. Topics: Walk Score, sprawl retrofit, livability grants, Katrina Cottages, how to get a transit village built, parking garages, the shrinking Wal-Mart, Complete Streets legislation, an urban capital fund, and much more.