How Parking Explains the World

5min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

The author of "Paved Paradise" says there is room for hope in America's underused land. Henry Ford was inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic to look at how parking can be transformed into public space. He hopes other people will see curb space as this massive underutilized asset potentially that could be turned into all sorts of things.

For decades, urban planners have blanketed our cities with the cheap and convenient car storage known as parking. They've swapped sidewalks for strip malls and bulldozed bright, inviting storefronts to make room for dark, urine-scented parking garages. In some downtowns, more land is now devoted to parking than buildings.

Parking profligacy has left us with cities that are polluted and hostile to pedestrians; they're also increasingly unaffordable because legally required parking can drive up the cost of residential construction by 25 percent.

In "Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World," journalist Henry Grabar dares to imagine a future in which we knock parking off its pedestal by enacting new laws, adopting new attitudes, and embracing new technologies (like e-bikes and autonomous cars) that make our cities greener, friendlier, safer, and more fun.