Do minimum parking requirements matter?

Here is my latest NYT column, for the ideas I am indebted to pointers from Daniel Klein, Matt Yglesias, and of course Donald Shoup. Here is the bottom line:

Guest blog post by Robert M. Groves, Director, U.S. Census BureauCross-posted on the Census Director's blogLast week I was pleased to speak to the Rural Philanthropy Conference. They are a set of private and community foundations that identify problems and issues facing rural America and seek to improve the areas through foundation investments. They want to do good works and see the lives of rural peoples improve.  There was discussion about what “rural” really means. It is fair to say that rurality as a concept has for years been derived from first identifying various types of urban areas. In that sense, rural areas are residual to urban areas; everything that’s not urban is rural.For example, looking at the area around Peoria, Illinois, illustrates the problem (see graphic). If we use the city limits of Peoria as the urban unit, then we deduce more land as rural adjacent to it. If we identify land use patterns, then we bring into a Peoria urban area more space, mainly suburban ring areas. If we use commuting patterns and other data to describe a cohesive economic center, then the rural fringe shrinks even more. So, “urbanicity” (and thus “rurality”) is currently defined by various combinations of civil jurisdictions, population density, land use and economic notions.

Here’s an idea that’ll probably be about as popular with drivers as 20 blocks of gridlock traffic. For obvious reasons, city drivers love parking that’s free or cheap. The problem is that too many drivers love it too much. The price difference between on-the-street parking and putting a car in the downtown garage is so big—perhaps a couple of bucks per hour versus $10 or $15 per hour—that hunting for one of the precious few available spots can seem like a (somewhat) sensible use of time. Or at least not a total waste of time.

Here’s an idea that’ll probably be about as popular with drivers as 20 blocks of gridlock traffic. For obvious reasons, city drivers love parking that’s free or cheap. The problem is that too many drivers love it too much. The price difference between on-the-street parking and putting a car in the downtown garage is so big—perhaps a couple of bucks per hour versus $10 or $15 per hour—that hunting for one of the precious few available spots can seem like a (somewhat) sensible use of time. Or at least not a total waste of time.

U.S. home prices declines to a new low for the move and are back to a level last seen in September-October 2002 according to a LPS News Release.

Arnold isn't convinced: If we abolished free parking, would parking spaces be scarcer? Keep in mind that if the price of parking went up, this would cause movement along the supply curve as well as along the demand curve. Maybe the total number of parking places would decline (it depends on elasticities), but the one result you can predict with certainty is that the number of unused parking places would go up. Is that necessarily welfare-improving?

Tell me if you think this story sounds familiar.

Catching up on my local development news blog, I read that they’re going to replace the terrible strip mall around H and 8th Northeast with approximately 400 rental apartments over retail with a facade that will fit the surrounding area: