Something that always annoyed me about discussions of the state of Manhattanville and Columbia's blight study is the fact that they usually leave out restrictive zoning as the original sin. We're certainly no fans of eminent domain or Columbia's plans for the West Harlem neighborhood, and while … [Read more...]
Enforced price ceilings on private parking lots
by Stephen SmithI wrote last week about a tendency in developing Asian countries to emulate the most anti-market Western planning policies, but I didn't realize it was this bad. Paul Barter writes: Would it surprise you to know that some cities control the price of parking even for … [Read more...]
Food deserts and zoning
by Stephen SmithThe other day I put up a post detailing the restrictions that small-scale restaurants and food carts face, but I should mention that grocery stores and supermarkets also face similar restrictions. Like restrictions on restaurants, they end hitting poor, urban, black … [Read more...]
Toronto’s new zoning code
by Stephen SmithMatt Yglesias points to an article about Toronto's new zoning code. The story is short on details, although the lowering of parking minimums near transit and overall simplification of the code seem like appealing features to Market Urbanists. I did, however, find a blog post … [Read more...]
Parking round-up
by Stephen SmithAt the risk of beating the parking theme deader than the Ground Zero Mosque, here are some recent parking-related stories published around the world:The NYC DOT's Park Smart program has been called a success in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, and officials are … [Read more...]
Shoupistas take Los Angeles
by Stephen SmithDonald Shoup and his arguments about free and underpriced parking have been getting quite a bit of press recently, and it looks like Shoup's hometown of Los Angeles has surpassed San Francisco (with its SFpark initiative) as the largest city in America to adopt some of his … [Read more...]
New empirical evidence that parking minimums encourage sprawl
by Stephen SmithAlthough we at Market Urbanism are big fans of Donald Shoup's work on parking minimums, we have to admit that rigorous econometric evidence that parking minimums mandate more parking than the market would otherwise supply has been a bit lacking. Randal O'Toole at The Antiplanner … [Read more...]
NYC’s lingering obsession with parking minimums may come to an end
by Stephen SmithBack in February Streetsblog had a good three-part series on planning changes in New York City since the beginning of Michael Bloomberg's term, and while they had a lot of praise for upzonings that have occurred throughout much of the four urban boroughs, they highlighted minimum … [Read more...]