Henry Grabar has written an excellent book on how badly America has screwed up its parking policies, and in turn ruined many of its cities, or at least parts of them.

Here is just one little tidbit:

Parking on the curb was not such a great option in those days: in 1990, 147,000 cars were stolen in New York City — one theft for every fifty residents.  My parents joined the club shortly before Christmas, 1993.  Their next car went into a garage, a prewar building with a cable-hauled elevator serving three floors of parking…

The revival of Manhattan around the millennium, which often took the form of apartments replacing parking, and the concurrent decline of car thefts, which fell by an astounding 96 percent between 1990 and 2013, put a lot of pressure on the curb.

I wish such books would spend more time discussing whether dense urban areas are simply a fertility trap.  Nonetheless excellent work, and everyone interested in urban economics (or parking) should pick this one up.  Due out in May, you can pre-order here.

The post *Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World* appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

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