Cities face much criticism with how they handle their car population, but have you ever thought about how much land use is dedicated to surface parking lots? In fact, it may be one of the most prominent features of the postwar city in the United States. Housing, community facilities, highway infrastructure, often garner much attention, but the amount of land dedicated just to park cars is astounding.
There are 8 parking spots for every car in the United States and they cover more than 5% of all urban land- a size greater than the states of Rhode Island and Delaware combined. Even in Los Angeles, a city that struggles with its housing shortage, there are more parking spots than housing. While these statistics seem startling, the amount of parking that consumes our land can be hard to understand as it relates to things that we more often talk about when it comes to city planning. We all live in a home, so we frequently discuss affordable housing. Some of us might live in cities so we work to improve mass public transit systems. But how many times have you driven to a store and thought to yourself, “there’s too much parking!” Probably never, but you may have spent a small portion of time circling a parking lot for an open spot and thought “there’s not enough parking!” instead
