aerial view of a large outdoor parking lot with cars

The High Cost Of Minimum Parking Requirements

In The High Cost of Free Parking, course instructor Donald Shoup argued that minimum parking requirements subsidize cars, increase traffic congestion, pollute the air, encourage sprawl, increase housing costs, degrade urban design, prevent walkability, damage the economy, and penalize people who cannot afford a car.

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Course Info

  • Duration 9 video lessons (65 Mins)
  • Published Published
    2021
  • 4.59
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Browse Course Chapters

  • Chapter Locked
    1.
    Introduction
    Chapter Duration 1 min
  • Chapter Locked
    2.
    Minimum Parking Requirements: 'The Great Planning Disaster'
    Chapter Duration 7 mins
  • Chapter Locked
    3.
    Parking Requirements Provide More Space for Cars Than for People
    Chapter Duration 6 mins
  • Chapter Locked
    4.
    As Disastrous and Unfair as the Perversity of a Willful Scheme
    Chapter Duration 11 mins
  • Chapter Locked
    5.
    Where Do Parking requirements Come From? The American Planning Association
    Chapter Duration 5 mins
  • Chapter Locked
    6.
    Where Do Parking requirements Come From? The Institute of Transportation Engineers
    Chapter Duration 11 mins
  • Chapter Locked
    7.
    The Hiding Hand of City Planning
    Chapter Duration 4 mins
  • Chapter Locked
    8.
    Removing Off-Street Parking Requirements
    Chapter Duration 9 mins
  • Chapter Locked
    9.
    Two Futures
    Chapter Duration 8 mins

What You Will Learn

  • Why cities require off-street parking spaces for every land use.
  • How cities decide on the number of parking spaces to require.
  • How parking requirements damage cities, the economy, and the environment.
  • How parking requirements discriminate against communities of color. 
  • Why cities are removing their parking requirements.

Course Description

Parking requirements are poisoning cities with too much parking. In the book, The High Cost of Free Parking, course instructor Donald Shoup argued that minimum parking requirements subsidize cars, increase traffic congestion, pollute the air, encourage sprawl, increase housing costs, degrade urban design, prevent walkability, damage the economy, and penalize people who cannot afford a car. Since then, to his knowledge, no member of the planning profession has argued that parking requirements do not cause these harmful effects. Instead, a flood of recent research has shown parking requirements do cause these harmful effects.

Learn these skills

  • Land Use
  • Law and Policy
  • Parking
  • Regulations
  • Transportation
  • Urban Design
  • Walkability
  • Zoning Codes

AICP CM

This course is approved for 1 AICP CM credit

AIA CES

This is 1 LU.

CNU-A

This course is approved for 1 CNU-A credit.

SACPLAN CPD

This course is approved for 1 SACPLAN CPD point.

Meet Your Instructor

Donald Shoup

Donald Shoup

Donald Shoup is Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Urban Planning at UCLA. His research has focused on transportation, public finance, and land economics.

Meet Instructor

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