I hold no love for parking minimums, and would love to see them abolished, but proposals like "we should turn 10% of all current parking spaces into low-income housing" just make me roll eyes.
That's not an actionable proposal, the closest that gets to an actionable proposal is to demolish existing parking structures and either put public housing projects on top of them or incentivize real estate developers to build actual low-income housing.
Telling real estate developers to build low-income housing in areas where they could easily build high-income housing is, well, let's just say cities promise this all the time and developers never do it.
"Build more housing" is probably the answer to the homeless problem, but the ownership issue needs to be fixed first. The author made all these cute graphics of studio apartments superimposed on parking spaces. Cool, I like density, my condo is 650 sqft, like 3 or 4 spaces without egress.
Are we talking about literally taking parking from existing owners and building housing on the bare pads? Are we talking about building vertically on top of them and leaving the space underneath for cars? I'm not saying these are bad ideas. But can we fully bake them first? So a politician can actually hand it to a bunch of legislators and come up with something he can actually put on his platform?
Sure let's abolish the minimum. But that won't do a darned thing to help congestion and the housing shortage other than make LA more like Atlanta where there's an island of density around a bunch of ugly sprawl with more dense pockets springing up in the periphery. We're still waiting for market conditions to fix the city. And market forces don't care about what we want. Promising low-income housing in desirable real estate markets doesn't work but is the only thing politicians can put on their platforms that people will vote for.
Zurich had this problem, the city was built before cars were a thing and thus it is inept of handling much traffic.
The authorities decided to disincentivize driving cars by blocking roads and reducing available parking spaces [0] while offering good public transport. Worked well, now only 17% commute by car.
While this is great for Zurich, and I would like to see it applied to a larger American city, but LA and Zurich are incredibly different scales of size. LA (according to Wikipedia) is 1,213.8 squared km, compared to Zurich at 97.8 squared km. I am not an urban planner, but I imagine that size difference would make implementing the Zurich model a completely different challenge.
That's well and good, but the sticking point is "the city was built before cars were a thing." The US is already heavy with sprawl and it's a reality that we have to live with. I'm not sure how to put that cat back in the bag.
The problem here is really that public spending has been vilified through decades of propaganda. The general public will vote against any taxation increase to pay for public works, even if those works would, in the end, lead to better lives for themselves.
It's a good idea in theory but what about out of town trips? Where do people park their cars until they need them? You can commute for 42 weeks but then, if you want to drive out to the country, how do you do it? I presume Zurich has some suburbs and houses with garages but I'm wondering if the current parking is enough to account for the need in cars that aren't used strictly for commuting.
Parking minimums are a big problem. But, it's just a part of a much bigger problem: Regulation is strangling the life out of us. Regulation like zoning and countless other regs prevents market forces from working the way they should.
Have you ever heard of a banana shortage crisis or a jeans shortage crisis in the US? No you haven't. The reason is because market forces are able to adjust to changes in market demand. In housing, those market forces are bottled up and stifled, preventing investments, preventing innovation, preventing progress, preventing better solutions. We really really need to start looking at regulations and find ways to get rid of the ones causing all these problems.
ADDED:
We've seen very little actual VC money or Research and development go into improving the cost of creating Shelter (In fact, we haven't made any improvements in this in the last 50 to 100 years adjusted for inflation). Much of this is due to regulations. Other industries can find ways to reduce cost but the mountain of housing regulations prevent any and all progress in these areas. I'd argue Housing is one of the most critical areas that human should be trying to progress in, as it's most important for human survival.
This is all fine and good, but IMHO LA metro map says it all [1]. 6 lines. What a joke. This mega city should have light or heavy rail metro pretty much everywhere. It's even better if there are parking lots in abundance. Park & Ride can be put into place more easily. So, it's obviously a political choice and I am not sure more regulation on parking will have any significant impact on this.
Ugh. Has this author ever visited LA? The entire city / culture is built around using a car to get to places. This article does nothing to address that, other than a few whimpy shoutouts to build more “convenient” public transit. Apparently we can get rid of all parking in Hollywood because a single red line runs through it.
In order for a public transit system to be convenient you need a LOT of density. You also need speed. The two goals are fundamentally at odds with each other. That’s why a lot of people prefer cars. No one likes traffic or emissions, and cars are way more likely to kill you, but damn are cars convenient even in urban environments.
Any plan like this can have all these numbers talking about how much space could be freed up but they need to address this fundamental problem, and this article failed to.
Now what interesting is the rise of self driving cars. I’ve often see paid parking lots and think within 20-30 years they will be out of biz. A few large operators will emerge and park their cars overnight at some owned large lot far out of the city to recharge, maintain, etc, and there won’t be much need anymore. So that could be a path to what author is talking about, long term. Of course does nothing for parking lot owners who just hold onto the property speculating...
It's always amazed me that humans - even those without much 'high tech' - can adapt to environments as diverse as the arctic, Kalahari desert, or jungles of Borneo, but god forbid the government stop mandating the precise number of parking spots places need, because no one would be able to adapt.
Build more housing where driving a car isn't the default mode of getting around and people will naturally start to demand better public transportation services and local spots they can get to via bike or walking. This housing won't suit everyone's needs but there's a significant part of the population who wouldn't mind being carless even in southern California.
Changing LA's car mentality isn't going to happen overnight but it has to start somewhere.
> culture is built around using a car to get to places. This article does nothing to address that
You should read the article.
compare the two first images on section 3 https://noparkinghere.com/#03 to understand why people take the car instead of walking to what is supposed to be next-door stores. Then remind that with actual density, your local gym/church/cafe will be actually be local, as in no need to drive to it and you still get there under 5min.
If I'm reading your comment right, I think you agree with the actual policy proposal presented. LA currently makes it illegal to build density via mandating parking everywhere. Removing that mandate doesn't remove any parking immediately - it only makes future development able to increase the density over what already exists.
Also, the fundamental way to have density and speed is Transit-Oriented Development. Basically super-high density within walking distance of stations. That way the experience of walking to a station, taking the train, and walking to a destination near the end station is really good. The places between the stations can be lower density without really changing anything.
Projections that I read from urbanists about autonomous cars is that it will make transit worst, not better.
We’ll have empty cars driving around the city to pick some up. Causing transit. It’s the same effect Uber is causing to cities. More transit and people taking less mass transit.
The scenario that I read from urbanists is that people will continue to own an autonomous car, and the car will drive you to work, drive back home to pick up your partner, drive her/him to work, drive back to pick up the kids, then drive them to school, and on and on. So more empty cars on the road.
While I see autonomous cars as a cool tech, I don’t see urbanists thinking it will solve urban planning.
LA already has the people and density to make transit useful. If everybody rode transit instead of driving (I mean everybody - your trash hauler would take your trash to the dump on transit!) there would be enough riders to profitably run the transit system LA needs for this to work. Of course everybody riding transit in that way isn't practical, but there is no reason with more investment in transit system AL couldn't get more riders.
If I understand your argument, higher density, less space for parking, better public transportation should help solve the lack of affordable housing. So why are Manhattan, SF, London, Hong Kong among the most expensive places in the world to live? Why is downtown <your city here> more expensive than the suburbs?
Your question is a little like asking "If chemotherapy cures cancer, then how come most people I know who have undergone chemotherapy tend to have cancer?" If the cities you mentioned hadn't undertaken some pro-density measures they would be even more unaffordable.
BTW if I sound like I'm anti-density because of the "cancer" metaphor, I'm not; sprawl is bad for the planet among other things, and well-planned walkable dense cities are the best way for a burgeoning human population to live in harmony with the planet and with ourselves.
Because people are willing to pay more to live there. All of those places are distinctive because their environments are illegal to build now, so we haven't made more of them even while population grew and urbanized.
They're low density even if you account for increased travel radius due to cars. That means you have a smaller concentration of people for events/stores/restaurants/etc. which means you have fewer events/stores/restaurants/etc. Especially once you move away from the most common mainstream events/stores/restaurants/etc since those cater to a much smaller subset of the population (which in suburbs is too small to sustain a business).
Density can increase desirability, increasing demand beyond supply causing prices to rise. Also, as a selection bias we only hear about the really popular expensive cities and not the cities that are dense but less desirable and hence affordable. For every Hong Kong there is a Dongguang.
I can't find a source at the moment, but I have to believe there are more affordable housing units in Manhattan, SF, London and Hong Kong than in most other places in the world. Do you agree?
Your comment reminds me of the parable about the dictator who noticed that the provinces with more sick people had more doctors, decided that doctors were the cause of illness, and summarily had all the doctors executed.
Try and use a little common sense about the direction of cause and effect here.
What you get is what you build. New roads just create more incentive for driving. It's been well documented over and over again that vehicle miles driven increases proportionally to roadway created. Lewis Mumford famously said “Building more roads to prevent congestion is like a fat man loosening his belt to prevent obesity.”
It's not the roads that cause traffic, it's the convenience of driving. To show how absurd the argument is, let's use it for housing - I'm sure it can be easily "documented" that building housing leads to higher population figures. So it must be bad, let's not do it!
Moving from car centered sprawl, to dense transit oriented city isn't something that can be done in one step. It's immensely complex, and changing the direction of cities/governments is difficult even when everyone involved wants to change.
I'm reminded of whiteboard discussions where someone says we are 'here X' and we want to be 'there Y' and simply draws an arrow between the two and says 'get started'. Assuming that all the important decisions have been made. Not realizing that the all complexity is in the arrow.
That arrow going from car focused to transit focused cities needs to be broken down into individual steps and those steps is where we need the brainpower going.
It isn't that difficult. It is mainly about changing incentives and unleashing the autonomous forces of the population.
If you think about it primarily in terms of top-down planning, then yea it seems hard. But urban planning is not the solution. If anything it is one of the problems.
Here's a better list of options that don't involve mandates or grand designs.
-Increase taxes on land value to prevent idle speculation
-Remove taxes on buildings to encourage construction and remodelling
-Abolish parking minimums
-Abolish height restrictions
-Eliminate zoning laws that prevent multi-family or mixed-use development
-Reclaim poorly used space for pedestrian use, such as curbside parking which accounts for up to 10% of all urban land by area.
This is what runs through my mind everytime one of these articles shows up on HN.
There is no easy way to undo decades of urban sprawl across the US, especially when many cities have huge amounts of space around them to make this possible.
Also, one of those steps is probably sinking incredible amounts of money into initially barely used public transit which is bound to be politically unpopular.
Quoting the description from the Twitter meta tag on the site:
> Los Angeles has the space to solve it's housing and transportation problems, it just needs right priorities. LA County has more than 110,000 acres of parking, enough to pave over Manhattan 7.5 times. Turning 10% of these parking spaces into homes could easily satisfy the current 550,000 home deficit for low-income renters. More than $1 Billion is spent every year just building new parking in Los Angeles.
>Some residents can afford more expensive homes as a limited supply increases demand, but those that can’t are pushed away into more precarious living situations and longer commutes.
Limited supply doesn't affect demand, they're largely independent unless you look at induced demand, but that mostly affects things like roads and power lines. It should say something like:
>As demand rises, the limited supply increases price.
or
>As supply outstrips demand, prices become unaffordable for large segments of the population.
It's just slightly wrong to indicate a causal relationship between supply and demand in the housing market, which is kinda what this whole page is about.
This article is bullshit, written and funded by real estate developers who want to build high density housing without concerning themselves with where the people who live in that housing are going to park the cars they own. This appears to rely on the fallacy that people are going to give up their cars to take non-existent public transportation to bring their kids to school or get groceries.
The public transit that does exist is rife with drug addicted, mentally ill homeless people. No fucking thanks!
Serious question - what percentage of people do you think will be swayed by these arguments? It's over 100 degrees during the day where I live (and it was before global warming too). I don't mind walking, but that temperature is dangerous for a lot of people, and inconvenient for everyone.
I really like the idea of density. I don't like big asphalt parking lots; but I think the alternative is concrete parking structures.
Disclaimer: I work for GM, any opinions are my own.
Car culture is finally backfiring in large cities. It's fine to do this when your city's population is small. You can have lots of cars and there is a lot of space. But now cities like LA are paying the price of everyone thinking they NEED a car and making it a cultural status thing. Imagine everyone thinking helicopters were cool and everyone should have a helicopter when they're 18 in order to get laid. It makes no sense, it's a transportation vehicle meant to be useful. It takes you from point A to B and that's it.
Good luck convincing people not to buy ludicrous vehicles as status symbols, or to keep up with the Joneses, meanwhile they're paying 12 or 15 or 20% interest for these cars over 6 years because of financial ignorance.
I work in a hospital office building, the parking lot is a circus of wasteful consumerism. The sheer amount of shiny, ridiculously huge F150s and luxury vehicles and the obscene number of SUVs tells me people dont get a simple, cheap A to B vehicle. They dont rideshare or bicycle or public transit. People pay top dollar for comfort, status, and care nothing for finances or climate.
Los Angeles covers a large area so you need a car to get around. I've tried only Ubering for a few months and it was more expensive than owning a car. The public transportion is half there but getting better. Bycling in the Santa Monica area is safe but outside of that it’s more dangerous because of oblivious drivers and road rage and LA streets are notorious for pot holes. I see some new apartment complexes being built with underground parking right below it which is the way to go but we do need more metros all around.
> Los Angeles covers a large area so you need a car to get around.
That is exactly half the problem the article is attempting to address—and the fundamental thought pattern that keeps reinforcing the problem. More space dedicated to non-car traffic means easier to get around without a car. More housing units in areas currently taken up by parking means—theoretically, at least—less need to get around that large area on average if everything you need day-to-day is a short walk, cycle, bus or train ride away.
> The public transportion is half there but getting better.
Another point the article addresses directly—turning acres of street parking into dedicated public transport lanes. Achieve greater levels "getting better" somewhat overnight (if you imagined that it was different tomorrow).
> ... it’s more dangerous because of oblivious drivers and road rage and LA streets are notorious for pot holes.
Again, the article addresses this directly. So many cars on the road increases traffic, which increases driver frustration/rage, as well as distraction and obliviousness while plodding along through traffic. Turning parking into dedicated walking and cycling areas would bring a huge increase in cyclist and pedestrian safety (again, if you imagined it was different tomorrow).
> I see some new apartment complexes being built with underground parking right below it which is the way to go ...
The article spends considerable time arguing that this is explicitly not the way to go—parking minimums increase construction costs considerably, thus decreasing available housing units, while simultaneously increasing housing cost. Underground parking is incredibly more expensive than on-street parking, which means the already increased cost of housing with on-street parking only worsens.
First off, parking isn't flat & spread out. It is very often stacked & condensed into compact areas known parking garages, some of which sit under housing complexes and so take up no extra real estate at all. Presenting the square acreage of all parking spaces like this is a grossly misleading way of presenting the data. 10% of the raw acreage of spaces is very much not 10% of the real estate used for parking.
Second, there have to be many more parking places than there are cars, otherwise you would never be able to move your car. You wouldn't find another spot, because it would already be taken.
Third, even if we imagine a perfect system where you leave your spot, someone leaves their spot and takes your spot, leaving an opening for you, that would still ignore the fact that parking spots are not fungible. You can't interchange them, one spot for another, and balance the equation. The spot in front of your house/appartment is pretty much useless for nearly everyone else that isn't a neighbor.
I don't have any comprehensive solution to this problem, but what I am pretty sure of is that there's no single silver bullet solution that will massively improve the situation. (or if there is such a solution & I'm just not smart enough to find it, it's not going to be found in parking spaces.)
On a related note, give this episode of Revisionist History a listen. It details the property tax loophole that has been taken advantage of by LA's country clubs for decades.
How did we get into this situation? According to this https://www.angieslist.com/articles/how-much-does-concrete-d... a "high-end" contractor charges at most $10 per square foot to build a concrete driveway, i.e. $2000 for a 200 sq ft parking space. Where does the other $25,000 go?
Your quote is for surface parking. Theirs is for above-ground parking. It is much more expensive to build a structure strong enough to hold a bunch of cars off the ground than it is to just pave a flat area.
Given that a dump on a tenth of an acre goes for a million bucks or more in parts of California, some of that's probably just for the space it takes up.
I just was recently introduced to this and other discussions on city planning by a couple of great youtube series by donoteat1[1]. "Franklin" and "Power, Politics, and Planning" are some of the best and most humorous examinations of topics like parking minimums, public housing, gentrification, etc. I've come across. The presenter is highly left-leaning, but also knowledgeable and backs up his positions with data. Agree or disagree with his views, it's informative either way!
It's opened my eyes much more to how cities are actually planned and the problems posed by politics over the ages - the conflict between public good and private interest, and how specific policies affect cities and their accessibility to people of various economic statuses. Would recommend if you enjoyed this article and want more related topics to learn about.
[+] [-] vinceguidry|6 years ago|reply
That's not an actionable proposal, the closest that gets to an actionable proposal is to demolish existing parking structures and either put public housing projects on top of them or incentivize real estate developers to build actual low-income housing.
Telling real estate developers to build low-income housing in areas where they could easily build high-income housing is, well, let's just say cities promise this all the time and developers never do it.
"Build more housing" is probably the answer to the homeless problem, but the ownership issue needs to be fixed first. The author made all these cute graphics of studio apartments superimposed on parking spaces. Cool, I like density, my condo is 650 sqft, like 3 or 4 spaces without egress.
Are we talking about literally taking parking from existing owners and building housing on the bare pads? Are we talking about building vertically on top of them and leaving the space underneath for cars? I'm not saying these are bad ideas. But can we fully bake them first? So a politician can actually hand it to a bunch of legislators and come up with something he can actually put on his platform?
Sure let's abolish the minimum. But that won't do a darned thing to help congestion and the housing shortage other than make LA more like Atlanta where there's an island of density around a bunch of ugly sprawl with more dense pockets springing up in the periphery. We're still waiting for market conditions to fix the city. And market forces don't care about what we want. Promising low-income housing in desirable real estate markets doesn't work but is the only thing politicians can put on their platforms that people will vote for.
[+] [-] pr0duktiv|6 years ago|reply
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zürich_model
[+] [-] ssully|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] partiallypro|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] samgtx|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WilTimSon|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HNcantBtrustd|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] thorwasdfasdf|6 years ago|reply
Have you ever heard of a banana shortage crisis or a jeans shortage crisis in the US? No you haven't. The reason is because market forces are able to adjust to changes in market demand. In housing, those market forces are bottled up and stifled, preventing investments, preventing innovation, preventing progress, preventing better solutions. We really really need to start looking at regulations and find ways to get rid of the ones causing all these problems.
ADDED: We've seen very little actual VC money or Research and development go into improving the cost of creating Shelter (In fact, we haven't made any improvements in this in the last 50 to 100 years adjusted for inflation). Much of this is due to regulations. Other industries can find ways to reduce cost but the mountain of housing regulations prevent any and all progress in these areas. I'd argue Housing is one of the most critical areas that human should be trying to progress in, as it's most important for human survival.
[+] [-] crocal|6 years ago|reply
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Metro_Rail
[+] [-] xivzgrev|6 years ago|reply
In order for a public transit system to be convenient you need a LOT of density. You also need speed. The two goals are fundamentally at odds with each other. That’s why a lot of people prefer cars. No one likes traffic or emissions, and cars are way more likely to kill you, but damn are cars convenient even in urban environments.
Any plan like this can have all these numbers talking about how much space could be freed up but they need to address this fundamental problem, and this article failed to.
Now what interesting is the rise of self driving cars. I’ve often see paid parking lots and think within 20-30 years they will be out of biz. A few large operators will emerge and park their cars overnight at some owned large lot far out of the city to recharge, maintain, etc, and there won’t be much need anymore. So that could be a path to what author is talking about, long term. Of course does nothing for parking lot owners who just hold onto the property speculating...
[+] [-] davidw|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robertnealan|6 years ago|reply
Changing LA's car mentality isn't going to happen overnight but it has to start somewhere.
[+] [-] gcbw3|6 years ago|reply
You should read the article.
compare the two first images on section 3 https://noparkinghere.com/#03 to understand why people take the car instead of walking to what is supposed to be next-door stores. Then remind that with actual density, your local gym/church/cafe will be actually be local, as in no need to drive to it and you still get there under 5min.
[+] [-] timerol|6 years ago|reply
Also, the fundamental way to have density and speed is Transit-Oriented Development. Basically super-high density within walking distance of stations. That way the experience of walking to a station, taking the train, and walking to a destination near the end station is really good. The places between the stations can be lower density without really changing anything.
[+] [-] MirrorNext|6 years ago|reply
We’ll have empty cars driving around the city to pick some up. Causing transit. It’s the same effect Uber is causing to cities. More transit and people taking less mass transit.
The scenario that I read from urbanists is that people will continue to own an autonomous car, and the car will drive you to work, drive back home to pick up your partner, drive her/him to work, drive back to pick up the kids, then drive them to school, and on and on. So more empty cars on the road.
While I see autonomous cars as a cool tech, I don’t see urbanists thinking it will solve urban planning.
[+] [-] bluGill|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] laughinghan|6 years ago|reply
At odds? Aren't they perfectly complementary? The closer things are together, the faster it is to get between them.
[+] [-] jseliger|6 years ago|reply
There are also a number of new lines and extensions coming up: https://www.metro.net/interactives/datatables/project/.
The Crenshaw line is close to opening: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crenshaw/LAX_Line
[+] [-] listenallyall|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xenocyon|6 years ago|reply
BTW if I sound like I'm anti-density because of the "cancer" metaphor, I'm not; sprawl is bad for the planet among other things, and well-planned walkable dense cities are the best way for a burgeoning human population to live in harmony with the planet and with ourselves.
[+] [-] CalRobert|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marcinzm|6 years ago|reply
They're low density even if you account for increased travel radius due to cars. That means you have a smaller concentration of people for events/stores/restaurants/etc. which means you have fewer events/stores/restaurants/etc. Especially once you move away from the most common mainstream events/stores/restaurants/etc since those cater to a much smaller subset of the population (which in suburbs is too small to sustain a business).
[+] [-] Angostura|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seanmcdirmid|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hammock|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] esoterica|6 years ago|reply
Try and use a little common sense about the direction of cause and effect here.
[+] [-] the_gastropod|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lazyjones|6 years ago|reply
What you get is what you build. New roads just create more incentive for driving. It's been well documented over and over again that vehicle miles driven increases proportionally to roadway created. Lewis Mumford famously said “Building more roads to prevent congestion is like a fat man loosening his belt to prevent obesity.”
It's not the roads that cause traffic, it's the convenience of driving. To show how absurd the argument is, let's use it for housing - I'm sure it can be easily "documented" that building housing leads to higher population figures. So it must be bad, let's not do it!
[+] [-] johngalt|6 years ago|reply
I'm reminded of whiteboard discussions where someone says we are 'here X' and we want to be 'there Y' and simply draws an arrow between the two and says 'get started'. Assuming that all the important decisions have been made. Not realizing that the all complexity is in the arrow.
That arrow going from car focused to transit focused cities needs to be broken down into individual steps and those steps is where we need the brainpower going.
[+] [-] nwah1|6 years ago|reply
If you think about it primarily in terms of top-down planning, then yea it seems hard. But urban planning is not the solution. If anything it is one of the problems.
Here's a better list of options that don't involve mandates or grand designs.
-Increase taxes on land value to prevent idle speculation
-Remove taxes on buildings to encourage construction and remodelling
-Abolish parking minimums
-Abolish height restrictions
-Eliminate zoning laws that prevent multi-family or mixed-use development
-Reclaim poorly used space for pedestrian use, such as curbside parking which accounts for up to 10% of all urban land by area.
[+] [-] WesleyLivesay|6 years ago|reply
There is no easy way to undo decades of urban sprawl across the US, especially when many cities have huge amounts of space around them to make this possible.
Also, one of those steps is probably sinking incredible amounts of money into initially barely used public transit which is bound to be politically unpopular.
[+] [-] gok|6 years ago|reply
Woah stop right there. That's the opposite of reality. Of the metro areas in the contiguous US, LA is in fact last in miles per resident: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2015/h...
(The absolute least is Honolulu)
[+] [-] jordwest|6 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lvUByM-fZk
[+] [-] NPMaxwell|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryannevius|6 years ago|reply
> Los Angeles has the space to solve it's housing and transportation problems, it just needs right priorities. LA County has more than 110,000 acres of parking, enough to pave over Manhattan 7.5 times. Turning 10% of these parking spaces into homes could easily satisfy the current 550,000 home deficit for low-income renters. More than $1 Billion is spent every year just building new parking in Los Angeles.
[+] [-] plankers|6 years ago|reply
>Some residents can afford more expensive homes as a limited supply increases demand, but those that can’t are pushed away into more precarious living situations and longer commutes.
Limited supply doesn't affect demand, they're largely independent unless you look at induced demand, but that mostly affects things like roads and power lines. It should say something like:
>As demand rises, the limited supply increases price.
or
>As supply outstrips demand, prices become unaffordable for large segments of the population.
It's just slightly wrong to indicate a causal relationship between supply and demand in the housing market, which is kinda what this whole page is about.
[+] [-] Dan_JiuJitsu|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] csours|6 years ago|reply
I really like the idea of density. I don't like big asphalt parking lots; but I think the alternative is concrete parking structures.
Disclaimer: I work for GM, any opinions are my own.
[+] [-] proc0|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Dumblydorr|6 years ago|reply
I work in a hospital office building, the parking lot is a circus of wasteful consumerism. The sheer amount of shiny, ridiculously huge F150s and luxury vehicles and the obscene number of SUVs tells me people dont get a simple, cheap A to B vehicle. They dont rideshare or bicycle or public transit. People pay top dollar for comfort, status, and care nothing for finances or climate.
[+] [-] miguelmota|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bobwaycott|6 years ago|reply
That is exactly half the problem the article is attempting to address—and the fundamental thought pattern that keeps reinforcing the problem. More space dedicated to non-car traffic means easier to get around without a car. More housing units in areas currently taken up by parking means—theoretically, at least—less need to get around that large area on average if everything you need day-to-day is a short walk, cycle, bus or train ride away.
> The public transportion is half there but getting better.
Another point the article addresses directly—turning acres of street parking into dedicated public transport lanes. Achieve greater levels "getting better" somewhat overnight (if you imagined that it was different tomorrow).
> ... it’s more dangerous because of oblivious drivers and road rage and LA streets are notorious for pot holes.
Again, the article addresses this directly. So many cars on the road increases traffic, which increases driver frustration/rage, as well as distraction and obliviousness while plodding along through traffic. Turning parking into dedicated walking and cycling areas would bring a huge increase in cyclist and pedestrian safety (again, if you imagined it was different tomorrow).
> I see some new apartment complexes being built with underground parking right below it which is the way to go ...
The article spends considerable time arguing that this is explicitly not the way to go—parking minimums increase construction costs considerably, thus decreasing available housing units, while simultaneously increasing housing cost. Underground parking is incredibly more expensive than on-street parking, which means the already increased cost of housing with on-street parking only worsens.
[+] [-] ineedasername|6 years ago|reply
Second, there have to be many more parking places than there are cars, otherwise you would never be able to move your car. You wouldn't find another spot, because it would already be taken.
Third, even if we imagine a perfect system where you leave your spot, someone leaves their spot and takes your spot, leaving an opening for you, that would still ignore the fact that parking spots are not fungible. You can't interchange them, one spot for another, and balance the equation. The spot in front of your house/appartment is pretty much useless for nearly everyone else that isn't a neighbor.
I don't have any comprehensive solution to this problem, but what I am pretty sure of is that there's no single silver bullet solution that will massively improve the situation. (or if there is such a solution & I'm just not smart enough to find it, it's not going to be found in parking spaces.)
[+] [-] pro_zac|6 years ago|reply
http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/11-a-good-walk-spoile...
[+] [-] sweeneyrod|6 years ago|reply
How did we get into this situation? According to this https://www.angieslist.com/articles/how-much-does-concrete-d... a "high-end" contractor charges at most $10 per square foot to build a concrete driveway, i.e. $2000 for a 200 sq ft parking space. Where does the other $25,000 go?
[+] [-] TheCoelacanth|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulgb|6 years ago|reply
The cost of a driveway does not consider excavating the space (or vertically building the space) for the parking spot.
[+] [-] ceejayoz|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jlj|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phantarch|6 years ago|reply
It's opened my eyes much more to how cities are actually planned and the problems posed by politics over the ages - the conflict between public good and private interest, and how specific policies affect cities and their accessibility to people of various economic statuses. Would recommend if you enjoyed this article and want more related topics to learn about.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFdazs-6CNzSVv1J0a-qy4A