Best landscape architecture books according to redditors
We found 257 Reddit comments discussing the best landscape architecture books. We ranked the 76 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 257 Reddit comments discussing the best landscape architecture books. We ranked the 76 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
I totally love the Christopher Alexander books. Definitely check out his The Timeless Way of Building which is a great companion piece to A Pattern Language. You should know that his works, while great in my opinion, are sort of considered idiosyncratic and not really in the mainstream of architecture/urban design.
Here's a short reading list you should look at:
The Smart Growth Manual and Suburban Nation by Andres Duany & Jeff Speck. Another set of sort-of-companion works, the Manual has a concrete set of recommendations inspired by the critique of modern town planning in Suburban Nation and might be more useful for your purposes.
The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs is probably the most famous and influential book on city planning ever and contains a lot of really original and thoughtful insights on cities. Despite being over half-a-century old it feels very contemporary and relevant.
The Geography of Nowhere by James Howard Kunstler is similarly mostly a critique of modernist planning principles but is both short and very well written so I'd definitely recommend checking it out.
Makeshift Metropolis by Witold Rybczynski: I can't recommend this entire book, but it does contain (in my opinion) the best summary of the history of American urban planning. Really useful for a historical perspective on different schools of thought in city design over the years.
The High Cost of Free Parking by Donald Shoup is the book on parking policy. It's huge (700+ pages) and very thorough and academic, so it might be harder to get through than the other, more popular-audience-oriented titles on the list, but if you want to include parking as a gameplay element, I really can't recommend it highly enough. It's a problem that's thorny enough most city games just ignore it entirely: Simcity2013's developers say they abandoned it after realizing it would mean most of their players' cities would be covered in parking lots, ignoring that most actual American cities are indeed covered in parking lots.
Finally there's a bunch of great blogs/websites out there you should check out: Streetsblog is definitely a giant in transportation/design blogging and has a really capable team of journalists and a staggering amount of content. Chuck Marohn's Strong Towns blog and Podcast are a great source for thinking about these issues more in terms of smaller towns and municipalities (in contrast to Streetsblog's focus on major metropolitan areas). The Sightline Daily's blog does amazing planning/transpo coverage of the Pacific Northwest. Finally [The Atlantic Cities] (http://www.theatlanticcities.com/) blog has incredible coverage on city-issues around the world.
I hope this was helpful and not overwhelming. It's a pretty big (and in my opinion, interesting) topic, so there's a lot of ground to cover even in an introductory sense.
It's amazing how few people grasp the high cost of "free" parking.
I'd highly recommend the High Cost of Free Parking by Donald Shoup (RIP) on this subject. Great, pioneering book about how we fail to deal with the huge externalities of personal automobiles.
Luckily, other people have thought very hard and determined that mandatory off-street parking raises the cost of living overall.
Why do you think parking should be made free (and giving a subsidy to users of those spots) outside the downtown core after 8pm, on Sundays and statutory holidays when nearly all experts agree that parking is grossly under priced?
How will you make up for the lost income and this subsidy for drivers?
Sources:
The High Cost of Free Parking
Freakonomics
New York Times
You are undoubtedly and unpopularly correct.
https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X
> You wanna just let the city start charging us to park on streets we already paid for?
The High Cost of Free Parking goes into this. If you want the reader's digest version, here's an episode of Planet Money that goes into it.
>Ok, what's unique about US problem?
Oh my god, I'm sure a plethora of master's theses have been written on this subject. This book comes to mind, for starters:
http://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Parking-Updated-Edition/dp/193236496X
(Note that it is written by a UCLA professor--yes, Los Angeles, the city with arguably the worst traffic problem in the world.)
Also note I am not saying that the USA is a special snowflake; that's SAS fodder and I know it. But yes, we are unique in the literal sense of the word.
Now we're beginning to scratch the surface. Or at least, that's what I believe.
^But ^I'm ^really ^upset ^and ^overwhelmed ^with ^my ^fucking ^university's ^course ^scheduling ^process ^in ^this ^moment: ^disclaimer.
Hey, I'm an urban planner in the private sector in Canada.
I haven't seen this youtube video in a long time, at least not since I started working out of school, and HOLY SMOKE it is pretty accurate. I identify with your skill set with the exception I could never do engineering as I am horrible with math and science. I went human geography to urban planning.
What don't you like about engineering? Is it the pay level? Number of entry level jobs? The number of entry level jobs in planning is super, super slim. It's a small field with a large number of graduates.
To be fair, there are a lot of different types of planner specialities. I do regular development approvals (rezoning, site plan, etc.). I can't speak for heritage or environmental planners really.
Planning is very much limited to a combination of what is allowed in the zoning by-law, engineering, developer preferences, and angry residents.
All municipalities have a zoning by-law. Zoning controls what you can and cannot build on a parcel of land including the setbacks, density, heights, uses, and most importantly (but least mentioned) MINIMUM PARKING REQUIREMENTS. Every building requires a certain number of parking spaces, usually an inflated amount. This wastes land like nobody's business. The parking is calculated based on building size and an assigned rate (example: grocery store: 6 spaces required per 100 sq.m of gross floor area). The bigger the building, the more parking you require. Parking ruins everything. The High Cost of Free Parking is my favorite planning book and is honestly far more useful about what's wrong with cities today than anything you'd learn in a master's degree.
Secondly, engineering constraints determine if a project will happen or not. Road widenings, water, sewers, etc. These are king in any municipality (and municipal engineers are almost always by the book).
Next, developers need to make a profit. If the developer wants to build a gas station, then you will do the planning work for a gas station. It's not all glorious and exciting mega-developments.
Lastly, angry (NIMBY) residents, and the Council members that represent them, will oppose most new development. Most residents oppose absolutely any change in their area, especially next door to them. Doesn't matter what you are building. The always use the same two excuses: "think of the children who play in this area" (I can't stand that one) and "it will cause more traffic" (and therefore cars will risk hitting our children sigh). Property values and building heights would be the next biggest complaints.
Can you make a real difference as an urban planner? City Council is responsible for making all decisions, planners just make recommendations. If Council thinks it will upset residents and they will lose votes, they will likely oppose a new development even if the development is great. Planners do get a role in explaining the benefits to the public but older people tend not to care about the 'progressive' stuff.
People get a bit of shock when the realize urban planning isn't Sim City. I still love my job though. I should also point out I don't make a lot of money yet at all AND I work/live in the suburbs. Many planners start out in smaller places first. Almost nobody is getting a planning job at a big city without prior work experience.
I'd love to answer more questions, let me know.
The question is not "for" or "against" cars, per se; it's about the high cost of "free" parking, which all of us pay, including people who have cars.
Do we want space for humans or for machines? That's a real salient trade-off in many cities, and it's one that's rarely foregrounded in discussions about the obscene cost of rent.
A lot of great thinking on urban parking including the cost it adds to development and the ramifications for livable cities was collected in the book [The High Cost of Free Parking](https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X). It is a thick tome, but it was suggested to me on reddit and reading it completely changed my view on parking regulations.
​
And shared use parking is a theme of some of the chapters. I think it's usually discussed in shared parking for multiple businesses that have different hours rather than apartments and businesses just because the businesses and residences are frequently in different areas.
There’s an important book dealing with this we read in Principles of Urban Design: The High Cost of Free Parking
Driving around looking for parking represents ~1/3rd of all vehicle miles travelled.
More: https://fee.org/articles/parking-regulations-cause-traffic-congestion-but-the-market-can-help/If you really want to go down the rabbit hole: https://www.amazon.ca/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X
Edit: more on the 1/3rd VMT that says it may be much lower http://docs.trb.org/prp/17-04407.pdf
The High Cost of Free Parking, Updated Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/193236496X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_TRPNBb707AMQM
This sub can seem overwhelmingly anti-car because, for many, it's a place to vent.
Look at it this way: the dominant public policy in the United States for several generations, stretching back 70+ years, has been to orient nearly every transportation, land use, and development decision around the automobile.
That has resulted in hundreds of billions of dollars (probably trillions, actually) of direct and indirect subsidies promoting car ownership, free and/or cheap car storage (parking), car-oriented residential development (suburban sprawl), and on and on. This in comparison to paltry support for public transportation, dense urban development, etc. Put succinctly, cars and cities are a bad match.
Don't get me wrong: the personal automobile is amazing technology. It makes sense that people have gravitated to it. But the planners of 1940s and 50s – whose system we largely emulate today – simply couldn't (or wouldn't) predict the massive negative side effects that accompany car-oriented development.
These planners thought that cars and suburbs would mean an end to urban gridlock. Instead, they accelerate it. They thought that building highways through urban cores would revitalize them – instead, those highways decimated communities, many of which have never recovered.
In fact, the original Interstate Highways System was supposed to connect cities (great idea!), not go through them (not so great).
For those of us on this sub who follow these trends, and have found that modern research is firmly against much of the so-called benefits of cars, parking lots, and highways, it's immensely frustrating that so much of the public conversation adamantly refuses to recognize the shortcomings of car-oriented development. So yes, you get a lot of "anti-car" sentiment around here, but I think it's more fair to say that we're pro-balance, not anti-car per se.
Cars will continue to make sense for the vast majority of people for the vast majority of trips. What we want to see are more options so that you don't have to drive everywhere, all the time, which is bad for our environmental and physical health, and is economically unsustainable to boot.
As for parking lots specifically, you won't find a better resource than Donald Shoup's The High Cost of Free Parking, which is basically the Bible around here (for good reason). I imagine you don't feel like reading a whole book about parking policy (and I wouldn't blame you!), but google the phrase and you'll find plenty of articles about it that get across the main points.
I'd also encourage you to check out the Strong Towns organization, which was started by a (conservative) former traffic engineer in suburban Minnesota (i.e. not your typical member of this sub). They come at these points from a very practical, non-ideological perspective. Here's a good post to start with.
Basic macroeconomics tells us that lower interest rates supposedly results in more spending, borrowing, and thus more economic activity and growth.
But there are some glaring holes in the mainstream economic understanding:
(1) After a transition period of a few months, the economy settles into a equilibrium that isn't much better than before the rate change. If the federal funds interbank rate is adjusted downward by only 0.25 percentage points (known as "basis points"), then there's no reason to think such a tiny adjustment will result in a meaningful boost to the economy.
(2) In fact, with baseline interest rates so low, we are in danger of entering a "liquidity trap" in which people don't even bother saving their money or investing it because the rate of return on investments and savings will be so low, the benefit of investing versus spending it today would be much weaker. Less money will be saved for financial emergencies, retirement, college savings, etc now that the benefit of doing so is reduced.
(3) Also, any boost to growth that results from reducing interest rates can only be sustained by continuing to reduce the interest rates over a prolonged period. A one-off decrease by such a small increment simply will not ripple through the economy in a way that people will appreciate.
(4) There is also the reality that simply making debt and other capital cheaper by lowering rates is not going to translate into new innovations, factories, warehouses, product lines or other new products and investments.
If new growth is the goal, we need to stop tinkering with monetary policy and commit to more Keynesian or Georgist macroeconomic fiscal policy:
Much needed. If anyone wants to read way too much on this topic I recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X
Great question, and great idea! Off the top of my head:
The Basics
Landscape Architect's Portable Handbook - This one does get a bit technical, but it's a good guide.
Sociology/Psychology
Social Life of Small Urban Spaces - Just a good book about how people experience spaces
Design with People in Mind - An older film, but a classic. Funny and with great observations about how people use spaces and interact with their environment
Design Theory
Architecture: Form, Space and Order - This is a great guidebook for architects and landscape architects alike
History of Landscape Architecture
Illustrated History of Landscape Design - A great intro to the history of landscape architecture.
Urban Planning/Design
Death and Life of Great American Cities - It's a classic and should be a required read for anyone in landscape architecture or architecture
This is the short list - I'll add to it as I think of more!
Here's the podcast, Parking Is Hell
They interview Donald Shoup, who is basically the expert on parking policy, and the author of The High Cost of Free Parking.
Sure. I'm an architect and when we get inquiries or RFPs the first thing we do is look at parking. I've worked on several large housing projects where the cost of underground parking has limited the size of the project because it stopped penciling out. Large complexes continue because demand is still high, but the cost is passed on directly to the tenant, which is why people complain that all new housing is expensive. Or maybe the developer wants a rooftop restaurant - those require 1 spot per 100 sf - that's huge!
In my experience, most planners agree that the market should dictate how much parking developers supply (see Donald Shoup) - if the developer doesn't think she can attract tenants without providing parking, then she's free to build as much as she wants, but others are free to try their hands renting units without a spot. I get it, parking in my neighborhood sucks too. There's an empty lot down the street from me; let's pretend I had enough money to buy it and pay the taxes on it (lol). It's a typical 50x100 RD1.5 lot, so take 5' off either side, 15' off the back and 15' off the front, leaving me with 2800sf buildable, which is a nice triplex, maybe two one-beds and a two-bed. But to do that I'd need at least five parking spaces... that eats into my ground floor space and net rentable area, pushes the project up on stilts, increases the amount of steel you need, or pushes the parking underground, adding hundreds of thousands of dollars to construction costs... it very quickly becomes not worth it.
I would love this! I often make the decision to drive to work, just because my bus commute is 2.5x the journey time (drive is 25-30 minutes, bus is 70-80 minutes). One of the reasons the bus commute is so long is because my local bus runs once an hour, leaving me with a 20 minute wait for a connection. I have to use it because the P&R fills up before 7am.
I would happily pay even a largish fee if I had a guaranteed spot at the P&R which would allow me to bus to work in a much more reasonable time (I estimate 35-40min).
On topic, this book is super fascinating: https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X
> In this no-holds-barred treatise, Shoup argues that free parking has contributed to auto dependence, rapid urban sprawl, extravagant energy use, and a host of other problems. Planners mandate free parking to alleviate congestion but end up distorting transportation choices, debasing urban design, damaging the economy, and degrading the environment. Ubiquitous free parking helps explain why our cities sprawl on a scale fit more for cars than for people, and why American motor vehicles now consume one-eighth of the world's total oil production.
I'm a radical Shoupian. The cultural idea that parking costs should be mostly paid for by the owner of the building, not the person parking, has led to bad architecture, bad traffic, bad environmental outcomes, and less enjoyable places. We should end minimum parking regulations, and price on-street parking better.
It's fundamentally a user fee. Americans are over-used to "free" parking, and there is a huge cost for that parking built into many prices all over the place.
https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X is relevant.
If you have the technical skills, make maps. I'm a programmer, so I made a transit app for my local system. Get in touch with other transit advocates in your area. Perhaps you can agree on some low hanging fixes and lobby for them. Deepen your understanding of the problem, I suggest Human Transit and The High Cost of Free Parking
There's a 600 page book on it
I 100% agree with your argument about false statistical certainty - this is a tactic people have been using more and more because precision is commonly mis-identified as certainty. Donald Shoup, the great parking policy professor from UCLA, outlines this as a major issue in his parking policy bible and how our entire country's parking volume recommendations and requirements are based on absurdly precise conclusions from statistically insignificant sample sizes.
I guess the only reason I'm taking the time to respond is because of this assumption:
>the total number of rides Uber gets from poorer neighborhoods is much lower than regular cab requests
I challenge this because I'm not sure if you're assuming that people in poorer neighbourhoods don't have smartphones, which is not true. In fact, the biggest reason transit agencies have been able to justify their push for smartphone-based tracking apps is that smartphone use and ownership is more or less equal across incomes and respectably high with low income riders. The only dimension that really varies in smartphone use is age.(Looking for citation - I read this in a report from the NYU Rudin Transportation Policy Center, but they've recently re-arranged their web site.)
Nevertheless, it stands to reason that we may not be getting quite an accurate or fair statistical analysis of the situation, but it certainly does feel like Uber is providing better service. In the least it is much more transparent about costs and has much more granular data available for it to mine.
Read Shoup.
I don’t think ample on-street parking is necessary or even desirable for a great neighborhood. In fact, I’d say all the neighborhoods and towns I’ve most enjoyed living in and visiting have all had atrocious parking. There are private parking spaces for rent in Cap Hill if a lack of parking is a personal problem for you. Not to mention, there are minimum parking requirements in Denver (except for parts of downtown) which will force this developer to include plenty of parking in any residential structure.
(Side note, I'd bet that it's easier to find parking on Pearl Street on a Friday night than it is to find an urban planner who believes minimum parking requirements are good for society, but that's another topic, or book)
Because it’s generally accepted that unbundling the price of parking from housing aides in greater flexibility of mobility choice, more affordable housing, and ultimately serves as a better way to charge people directly for their use of this ‘commodity.’
Some literature on the topic:
The Hidden Cost of Bundled Parking - Access Magazine
“Unbundling” Parking Costs is a Top Way to Promote Transportation Options - Mobility Lab
Unbundling Parking Isn’t Easy but It’s Worth It - The Greater Margin
The High Cost of Free Parking
Here's some books from my library:
The Affordable Housing Reader - Basics on how affordable housing in the US works (or how it doesn't work...)
Cities for People/Walkable City/Death and Life of Great American Cities - Classics that really pertain to most things
The Public Wealth of Cities - How to leverage public/city assets to benefit the most amount of people
The Color of Law - How racism has shaped our cities
Happy City - Planning for social health
> especially leftist urbanism (anti suburbs and single family housing, pro mass-transit etc)
I'd be weary of calling this 'leftist urbanism,' since all of these are perfectly compatible with right-wing viewpoints, just handled very differently. You're looking more for sustainable urbanism and the social impacts of it. The books I have recommended above do all have a centrist or left lean to it though.
Excellent. Thanks.
Here are the Amazon links for those books for anyone interested.
Uh, go to Palms at 7pm and try to park.
If you actually care about this, here's a great book about the issue. Parking in Westwood can take 15-20+ minutes due to a parking shortage, which promoted an economist to try to determine what pricing strategies could be used to solve the parking shortage in the city. The shortage is very real and has very real costs.
The source for that stat appears to be this book . It sounds interesting but it's a bit pricey for something I'm only mildly curious about. Looks like Houston Public Library doesn't have it but there's a copy in the UH architecture library if anyone's interested.
If all you're doing is moving your car every a few spaces down every two days, why even have a car?
I don't really want to do an extended internet argument about parking and urban planning. This is basically what I'd say, but better: https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X
"Half as much parking downtown" is an absurd exaggeration.
Also, there is a bloated amount of parking in downtown Milwaukee as it is. It always amuses me that people expect free or subsidized storage for their private vehicles in a dense urban core. People in Milwaukee, and America in general, have a terrible understanding of parking economics.
A&M is short for Texas A&M University. The A&M stands for agricultural and mechanical. It's located in College Station, Texas.
Trust me, you likely would not have liked Harlow, particularly if you were female. He had a bias towards women for some reason. He knew his material, but he was short with people and had no problem dressing you down in public.
I'm willing to bet that they still require his book for the introduction to construction class.
Here's a used copy on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Landscape-Architecture-Construction-Harlow-Landphair/dp/B005YVLZRW/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=harlow+landphair&qid=1565577476&s=books&sr=1-1
If you'd like a really interesting read, then check out this book. It's called The High Cost of Free Parking by Donald Shoup. If you're super lazy, listen to the Freakonomics podcast about it.
First, a bit of background: I have lived/worked downtown for the better part of six years and have had little problems with parking. I live/park everyday in what is roughly three blocks from the city center. I also study urban planning, occasionally attend city council planning sub-committee meetings, and like reading about parking.
I disagree with what you are saying. On any given day (yes even during peak hours between 8:45a and 5:30p) there is a considerable amount of open parking spaces within five blocks of Fourth Avenue (I've seen the data). The problem isn't so much the actual amount of parking available but more the perceived amount of parking available. We all wish to find that prime spot right on Fourth, Fifth, or State and if that is the only goal then it will take some driving about an waiting. But, if you go one or two blocks in you will start to find plenty of open, cheap, and long-term parking. Hell, even during state worker rush times my block has numerous nine-hour parking meters available. There are spots across the street that I have seen seldom used in weeks save for an event at the WA performing arts center or a library function. For a city our size we actually have an overabundance of parking, which if one were to follow Donald Shoup's work means we ought to raise prices on the prime parking and during peak hours.
When the plans for new City Hall did not include a lot it raised a stink but makes sense in forward-thinking planning terms. People love to talk about “going green”, upping transit, and increasing walkability but the second you remove a few parking spots you'll see an uproar. Same for the flipside of the coin: those who decry local government subsidies will complain when parking priced well-below market value isn't available at a moment's notice. When you allow non-market value parking, free parking, forced parking spot creation per zoning laws, etc you're actually facilitating more use of the automobile and in turn forcing more wasted gas and "block circling" to be the lucky one to find a convenient spot. What Shoup has found in The High Cost of Free Parking is that it this idea of plentiful cheap parking does not work and only in making a multi-cost parking format where the more convenient spots are adjusted to market value (and raised during peak time while being monitored and price- fluctuating until you find the right price to keep a constant 4/5 of the spots filled) and a cheaper price as you venture further away (also adjusting these prices to represent a regular 4/5 occupancy) do you start to find a sweet spot. Being able to find a prime spot on the busiest street while also having the same availability without the premium tacked-on a few blocks down. Basically: some parking prices will go up while others may drop to meet the demand.
What does this mean for local business? Considering how cheap parking is now and how local businesses and their employees can apply for downtown parking permits you can imagine that at least some of the prime spots are being taken up by those who work in the area. As Shoup demonstrates in his book, rather than having an employee take up a prime spot for 5-8 hours you have a constant flow of customers occupying the spot for less time and paying more. Will this slight increase hurt your business? His findings show, no. Those who would be effected by a minimal increase in price will park a block or two away, per what they are willing to spend. Employees will follow suit. Lower traffic, less gas burned, and more evenly-distributed open spots are the outcome of this pricing system as San Francisco has proven after they adopted Shoup's methods.
As for your comments about parking services being a “cash cow”, that really is not the case for expired meter tickets, which run $15. While other tickets fetch much higher prices (parking in a yellow zone is $75) these are not factored into the parking argument as they are no-park zones to begin with. On the city not meeting it's own needs in parking, I say: the City of Olympia represents all of Olympia, not just downtown. Downtown is one of the few areas in the city where crowded parking is even noticeable. They have taken actions in-line with their Comprehensive Plan (the actual plan for the future) to increase mass transit, bicycling, and walkability in downtown towards a less single-auto orientated city center. The actual parking downtown is sufficient (some would argue overkill) for it's current and future needs, large population surge not-withstanding. A quick look at the past decade of growth in Olympia (specifically downtown population and business expansion) and projections for the future show that we aren't expecting growth on an unmanageable scale anytime soon. I believe if the city implemented a more efficient pay parking structure it would alleviate many of the current parking woes within the main city blocks and could perhaps increase business in the area. Those holding your beliefs of few parking spots downtown might be more inclined to go and spend their money there if they know that a prime spot is probably attainable at any hour of the day, albeit at a higher price, but also with the knowledge that cheap parking is available within a few blocks of their intended destination.
Check out Larry Weaner's book Garden Revolution.
Garden Revolution: How Our Landscapes Can Be a Source of Environmental Change https://www.amazon.com/dp/1604696168/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_VoVDDbRMV4EFJ
A great resource for exactly this kind of DIY. 🥰
The High Cost of Free Parking by vintage, urbanist pinup Donald "ShoupDogg" Shoup remains irrelevant in a conversation about customers renting curb space.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/London-Biography-Peter-Ackroyd/dp/0099422581
And the book.
Some relevant reading on the subject of Free Parking.
By the same author (but free to read), a somewhat old but still interesting read on on free parking cost and city planning. (pdf)
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Parking is a consumable and limited resource (especially when observed at a neighborhood level). Limited resources should have an associated cost.
I don't really care about building a tower. Kilbourne Group can do whatever they want. My concern is that building the tower hinges on the city building a ramp and plaza for the tower, which goes above and beyond economic incentives given to other business development. There ought to be a level playing field for developers throughout the city of Fargo. I don't see any reason why Kilbourne Group should get special treatment.
Secondly, parking ramps tend to sit empty when there are free options on the street, even if those ramps are also free (count cars inside and outside the Island Park or City-owned ramp sometime). I know it sounds counterintuitive but there are books about this sort of thing. Unless the ramp is free, people will continue to use on street parking instead, which adds to congestion and noise. If the city wants to encourage use, and help pay for the maintenance and, ideally, other business improvement districts, they ought to add parking meters downtown and offer a ramp for less in fees or for free.
Edit: I realize that parking meters are currently illegal in ND, which is a dumb law that ought to be changed.
It is not a basic quality of life concern, are you insane? More parking is always a good thing? Read this, or any other urban planning book from the past 40 years.
https://www.amazon.ca/High-Cost-Free-Parking/dp/193236496X
Well, governments sort of do already, but not anywhere near the scale of the subsidies that are given to drivers.
Every car lane on a road that isn't a private toll road is an indirect subsidy for drivers and the frequent mandates that new development contain X amount of free parking spaces. There is a good book on this called The High Cost of Free Parking by Donald Shoup and you can read his original paper here for free. Free parking also subsidizes the car experience by taking valuable real-estate and making it free to use by motor vehicles.
If we take into account the subsidies for Oil and Gas Companies that keep the price of gasoline down it emerges that tens to hundreds of billions are being used in the US alone (the article references Australia but I'm more familiar with US statistics) to subsidize driving.
Some cities install bike lanes and bike parking but use a fraction of the resources to do so. Given the long term health benefits of cycling and the ecological impacts of mass driving it makes sense to me to shift some of the massive subsidies already going to drivers to cyclists.
Most cities spend less than 1% of their transit budget on bicycle infrastructure even though a much higher proportion of their population rides a bike regularly or as a commuter.
Given that the US government is willing to subsidize new electric vehicles with multi-thousand dollar tax breaks I see no reason why it should not be possible to write off on one's taxes 25% of the cost of a new bike or some similar scheme.
Alternatively it could set up a system where people who can verify that they bike to work 50% or more of the time receive a $1,000 health tax credit at the end of the year. This would also encourage people to work close to where they live (if your commute is only 2 miles it is a lot easier to achieve this tax credit) which would encourage density.
Interaction Design
Interior Design
Landscape Architecture
Lighting Design
Product Design
Product Design
Sound Design
Urban Design
* Cities for People by Jan Gehl
Web Design
Most American suburbs have zoning that mandates a specific minimum amount of free parking. The point where it becomes a legal requirement is the point where it moves back from being a symptom to a cause. Now you can't easily walk to the next building over, because it's a half mile away, across two large parking lots that have no safe areas for pedestrians.
If mall and office building developers were allowed to build smaller parking lots with fewer spaces, and were allowed to charge for it, you'd better bet they would.
References: The High Cost of Free Parking, by Donald C. Shoup
Well, somebody pays for it: the actual cost of a free parking spot in an otherwise develop-able area is $5/day.
It would be obnoxious of me to expect you to read all 733 pages of The High Cost of Free Parking by Donald Shoup (https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X), so I'll instead recommend this incredibly condensed and less broad 21 page paper by the same author on the topic (http://www.uctc.net/research/papers/351.pdf).
But, if you're really really really into fairly boring & long, exhaustively researched topics, I'd highly recommend the full book :D.
Garden Revolution: How Our Landscapes Can Be a Source of Environmental Change is a good one too. I think Xerces Society has California specific plant suggestions and sources
You should take a skim through Donald Shoup's The High Cost of Free Parking, and give a Google to "induced demand." It becomes clearer what the operating theory is.
There's extensive, well-regarded research showing that parking requirements raise rents: http://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Parking-Updated-Edition/dp/193236496X Professional economists overwhelmingly agree with that book's core claims: http://www.igmchicago.org/igm-economic-experts-panel/poll-results?SurveyID=SV_3aeMp7lK74rrVFa
You can choose it ignore it, and there's no such thing as conclusive "proof", but saying the evidence isn't incredibly strong is basically sticking your head in the sand.
For a concrete example:
One study written about in this amazing book found evidence that the minimum parking requirements in one area of LA increased the cost of housing by 26%
Donald Shoup has a book by the same name that is fascinating
Here is an excerpt and you can buy it here
I thought you were going to talk about something else, which is how public planning currently values free parking above pretty much everything else. It's really shaped how cities sprawl. There's a whole book about it.
I have no problem with people who have no other option except to drive to work, but I don't see why they shouldn't have to pay extra to leave their cars parked the majority of the day/night on what could otherwise be more productive property within a community.
I recommend this book as a good primer on the issues parking subsidies cause.
I don't think where I live really matters in regards to my opinion. I work in Mt. Vernon, I've lived in Mt. Vernon before, and I'll likely live there again.
If you look at the last downtown partnership studies, you'll see that a majority of Mt. Vernon residents work within 2 miles of their residence, and still drive to work despite having multiple other less harmful modes of transportation as options. If they choose to do that I believe they should have to pay more for their choices. I'm sorry that the few exceptions you identify would suffer as well, but I think despite your complaints the neighborhood improves with more transit, bike, and walking options, as well as more retail and residential properties, even at the expense of parking and road space for individual car users.
The High Cost of Free Parking http://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Parking-Updated-Edition/dp/193236496X
There are a lot of hidden costs associated with free parking too. For instance, it makes cities less walkable and reduces available building space.
video... though that's a pretty brief coverage. There's a book I haven't read. And one of my podcasts (Planet Money? Freakanomics?) did an episode, which I cannot now find.
http://www.amazon.com/Architecture-Now-Landscape-Philip-Jodidio/dp/3836536765
I would check out this book http://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking/dp/1884829988
Here, read this book. Parking costs $$$ to provide the ~325 sq ft of space (~550 sq ft when including the driving space), especially opportunity costs (i.e. residences, businesses, etc that would actually be productive places). Mandating its inclusion and having it be of no cost to the user does soooo much to promote a cycle of automobile dependency, to the point where expecting free parking in a large city creates the very problem it was meant to solve.
There's also the 800 page (text)book by Shoup. Which is a decent read. It does get a bit repetitive after a while. https://www.amazon.ca/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X
The underlying premise is that free/cheap parking is bad. It causes inefficiencies in the whole system. The article indirectly references this book.
Sure! Check out The Landscape Urbanism Reader, Groundswell, & [Modern Landscape Architecture] (http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Landscape-Architecture-Critical-Review/dp/0262700514/ref=pd_sim_b_35) for starters.
https://www.amazon.ca/High-Cost-Free-Parking/dp/193236496X
this is considered mandatory reading in planning circles.
The Renegade Gardener
Tons of great landscape design info here. Going through the Design, Myth of the Week, and Don't Do That sections will pretty much put you in the top percentile of landscaping-literate homeowners.
You don't say where you're located, but I always recommend Creating the Prairie Xeriscape by Sara Williams. The plant selections are geared toward colder zones but the principles of low-water, low maintenance landscaping that isn't barren or sterile looking are applicable pretty much anywhere.
This may not be a bad thing. I haven't read The High Cost Of Free Parking, but I've certainly seen some compelling arguments for raising parking rates. You know, like "you might be able to find a parking spot".
The initial cost of building a garage may be cheaper, but the maintenance and opportunity cost is ungodly expensive for a parking garage. There're some really strong opinions on how bad parking is (see: High cost of free parking), but building structures that are generally really ugly, don't include any eye candy, and are single use is totally a waste of really really expensive real estate. Leave the parking garages in the suburbs and make parking so expensive that people actually take the train to the stadium.
In some places, they've decided to convert previous parking garages into usable spaces. Boston has one called the Garage and it's super cool.
The Reluctant Metropolis: http://www.amazon.com/The-Reluctant-Metropolis-Politics-Angeles/dp/0801865069
Not a book, but documentary "Los Angeles Plays Itself" has plenty of architectural history and commentary in LA. I never knew that Bunker Hill was a thriving & dense neighborhood for decades before it was razed
Also check out the podcast Hidden History of LA --> http://www.hiddenhistoryla.com/about.html
short episodes but really great!
http://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Parking-Updated-Edition/dp/193236496X
Then again, during peak times Uber has pretty crazy surge pricing to balance supply and demand. Edit: People are always suprised at surge pricing, with very little sympathy as the app makes it annoyingly clear. And another example from New Year's.
Taxis being forced to have a fixed price means that can't happen, so demand outstrips supply. Some argue that it's more accessible for everyone when prices are fixed, but the flip side is that yeah, no one can get a cab at peak times, so it's not really more accessible.
I personally like the adaptable prices. Many transit systems also have peak prices so that people who aren't forced to use a service at peak time will have an incentive to offload their usage to when there is less stress on the system.
Where I lose most people is when I point out that peak pricing could do great things for parking and roads, too.
Whatever knuckleheads started this petition should read this book:
http://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Parking-Updated-Edition/dp/193236496X
Free parking is BAD. End of story.
https://www.amazon.com/Landscape-Architecture-Documentation-Standards-Principles/dp/0470402172/ref=nodl_
We have a copy of Landscape Architecture Documentation Standards: Principles, Guidelines, and Best Practices which was produced by design workshop. If you are producing landscape plans for construction this book will be a great guide for that process.
link--> https://www.amazon.com/Landscape-Architecture-Documentation-Standards-Principles/dp/0470402172
> Sacramentans don't have a huge history of dealing with limited parking
In general, parking, especially free parking, in cities is seen as a something that is extremely harmful to the City success. So a lot of us can get pretty defensive about it because of the way that too much parking hurt Sacramento's development. UCLA Professor Donald Shoup has a good book on the idea.
Along with improving non-auto infrastructure, we will have to adapt to non-auto modes. It will take time, but will make Sacramento a much more prosperous City, and a better place to live.
The economics of free street parking is quite interesting. This issue is much more impactful on the health of our cities than first glance may suggest. If you're really into it, here are 800 pages to feast on.
http://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X
Had my first construction class last year and we actually use this book now https://www.amazon.com/Engineering-Landscape-Architects-Steven-Strom/dp/1118090861
Did you have professor Reid when you were in school?
The argument he's making actually isn't against city-owned garages (even though that's the point he desperately wants to make given that it's The Atlantic). The argument is actually against parking that is "too cheap," which is a perfectly valid and not-at-all novel argument to pose. See this book for example.
The city could still raise prices and retain ownership.
Why would you expect the city to waste space that could be put to a better use on parking for you? That would be a waste of valuable space, which is in short supply in such a geographically small downtown area.
 
This book is specifically about free parking, but addresses how wasteful in general parking is.
https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X
 
Long story short, expecting a city that you don't even pay taxes towards to provide something for you is an incredibly entitled mindset. Maybe cities aren't for you.
 
e: Actually, Houston just might be the city for you:
http://i1117.photobucket.com/albums/k591/birdboy1/parking-houston.jpg
https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X
And with any thought at all it should be something that voters are strongly against. It turns out there is a high cost to free parking. Man I hope that idiot doesn't get in.
Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California's Natural Resources
Plowman's Folly
The Humane Gardener: Nurturing a Backyard Habitat for Wildlife
Garden Revolution: How Our Landscapes Can Be a Source of Environmental Change
The Reluctant Metropolis: The Politics of Urban Growth in Los Angeles
> William Fulton chronicles the history of urban planning in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, tracing the legacy of short-sighted political and financial gains that has resulted in a vast urban region on the brink of disaster. Looking at such diverse topics as shady real estate speculations, the construction of the Los Angeles subway, the battle over the future of South Central L.A. after the 1992 riots, and the emergence of Las Vegas as "the new Los Angeles," Fulton offers a fresh perspective on the city's epic sprawl. The only way to reverse the historical trends that have made Los Angeles increasingly unliveable, Fulton concludes, is to confront the prevailing "cocoon citizenship," the mind-set that prevents the city's inhabitants and leaders from recognizing Los Angeles's patchwork of communities as a single metropolis.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Reluctant-Metropolis-Politics-Angeles/dp/0801865069
We should focus on how the government subsidizes carbon consumption though [ parkinglot mandates] (http://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413929706&sr=1-1&keywords=the+high+cost+of+free+parking) and forces people to depend on cars through zoning laws that segregate businesses from apartments. High density living is illegal is most of america. [The government also subsidizes environmentally destructive activity] (http://www.amazon.com/Perverse-Subsidies-Dollars-Undercut-Environment/dp/1559638354/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413929785&sr=1-1&keywords=perverse+subsidies)
This is not a new problem to solve.
https://www.amazon.ca/High-Cost-Free-Parking/dp/193236496X
I'd like to see Tesla move to a dynamic pricing model that takes occupancy into consideration in real time. The pricing model should optimize for a certain vacancy of stalls at any time, say 10-20%.
Using pricing projections, you could set your trip planner to optimize on shortest trip time or lowest cost.
Someone needs to read "The High Cost of Free Parking".
You might be interested to see how San Francisco addressed street parking. They installed meters that would allow for variable pricing based upon supply and demand. I think this could work in Hoboken, especially along Washington Street, to encourage more short-term parking for the street and encourage people to use garages for long term parking.
Also there's a good book called "The High Cost of Free Parking" by Donald Shoup. There's an excerpt here that people can read.
https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X
Minor correction: the book's title is The High Cost of Free Parking.
Amazon link
TANSTAAFL, y'all. Oodles of parking costs oodles of money, and it's nothing short of absolutely fair and dandy that parking co$t$ there - either pay up directly, or visit an approved merchant (indirect payment).
Donald Shoup has calculated that mandatory parking might be America's single most expensive social program
Speaking as an ecologist/MLA student, I'd recommend:
[Land Mosaics - The Ecology of Landscapes and Regions] (http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/life-sciences/ecology-and-conservation/land-mosaics-ecology-landscapes-and-regions#Z1soSK6SqqTFIWBR.99) by Richard Forman (more classic, approachable, design-relevant)
Landscape Ecology in Theory and Practice by Turner & Gardner (more technical/scientific, quantitative, up-to-date)
Also rec'd and relevant is Marsh's Landscape Planning, basically an applied spatial/environmental planning text/manual.
Landscape ecology is basically a sub-discipline of ecology (the study of interactions among/between organisms and their environment) with a spatial, and often broad-scale focus (sq-km to 10,000s of sq-km). As /u/OneiricGeometry says, it's an academic discipline more than a professional field, but one highly relevant to work in design, planning, and environmental management.
Edit: Also highly rec Design With Nature, even if it's a bit dated, it communicates well in words, photos, and graphics, a way of thinking that is central to landscape planning and design.
This is the best book - though American (and things are far worse there - particularly the 'free' part in the title), many of the issues still apply
https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X
Here is a pretty good book in English about niwaki specifically. I think you're right that there is an aspect that is meant to seem effortless but the amount of work that goes into just the pruning is incredible. And everything is placed, the rocks weren't just found there. There are all sorts of symbolic arrangements to those too, like they bury them halfway, again to give the impression that it's very old. Now a lot of those gardens actually are very old but really not left up to chance that much. It's like a whole art form that we barely have in the west but there are some Japanese style gardens here.
They're not. People's incomes might not have kept up, but the actual cost of free parking (and yes, read the book) is too much.
Have you read Donald Shoup's essays on parking? He also has a book out but I won't read it until there's a kindle version.
http://www.amazon.com/Niwaki-Pruning-Training-Shaping-Japanese/dp/0881928356
Relevant reading
There are 2 parts to the automobile society problem. One of them is building an alternative, which I'm glad to see Obama is working towards. The other side of this is the substantial subsidies the federal government has been giving car travel for decades. Train travel wasn't killed only by Detroit, it was killed also by a free interstate highway system.
I recently gave a talk (slides) about these car subsidies: parking mandates and infrastructure costs which far exceed the user fees paid via the gas tax. As transportation is extremely cost sensitive (as Donald Shoup has shown, for example with his parking cash-out studies), these subsidies make the difference between a sea of suburbs and a denser network of European-style villages & cities.
So don't get lost only in building rail networks, as correcting perverse subsidies is just as important as building an alternative.
Check out The High Cost of Free Parking if you feel like a serious read that basically supports everything you already think about cars and parking.
People should have to pay market prices for parking, whether they're parking a food truck there or not. (By the way, that would mean drastically less parking, as parking is heavily subsidized.)
https://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-History-Landscape-Design-Elizabeth/dp/0470289333
This book could be used for citation.
There is a section covering the Medieval period. I don't know what makes a monastic garden different from the kitchen/herb gardens of a castle/estate manor during that time, but they seemed to be mostly walled in and with practical use instead of for aesthetic purposes. This is in contrast to the Enlightenment's monumental palace gardens. And further on, geometry fell out of fashion with the rise of Romantic Naturalism in the 18th century.
I think the herb knot gardens in fashion during the Medieval period informed the Victorian annual bedding practices or even the hedge mazes that emerged. This is just personal speculation, however.
There is a clear connection between the geometric and regular layout of (because of the wall boundaries) of these older gardens and the impressive layouts of the gardens of Notre for Versailles, though. They were artificial on purpose and followed the philosophy of hierarchical order with Man above everything, but under God. Bushes and trees weren't left to themselves if they could be turned into topiaries, pleached, pollarded, etc. They were in regimented rows and expressed wealth from the amount of hired help required to maintain them.
San Francisco, his study area is actually implementing his suggestions coming April 21. You should attempt to read his book if you're interested in parking as a concept of unintentionally bad planning.
Great! For some reason, I was imagining someone who was just getting interested in those subjects when I was throwing things out. At that level, anything I can think of that you're not already familiar with would not really be 'popular reading' style books, but academic publications, and you already know how to seek those out.
I was thinking mostly about how many economics classes you may have had when I mentioned anything more technical than Natural Capitalism. I think that book would be fine for most people, I just know most Economists would dismiss it as too anecdotal, not enough statistically significant examples.
>I'm a stubborn reader, thus I can chew through most heavy pieces with ease as long as their are not overloaded with numbers and statistics.
Hmmm. I can't really think of more advanced resource economics or environmental engineering books than you've already read that aren't going to be exactly that. Or perhaps it's just that I avoid the ones that are not, as I suspect they must be too agenda driven.
For human development (I have a suspicion we're using the term "human development" differently, but) "Lowly Origin: Where, When, and Why Our Ancestors First Stood Up" by Jonathan Kingdon is interesting.
Oddly, I was just saying on another thread here how we use the same terms to mean different things in different fields. I think I know what you mean by "environmental engineering", in the sense that business and ecology majors may imagine it. But, in the Engineering school, it means something more like 'the wastewater treatment process and stormwater diversion and soil mechanics', and therefore those books are all about explaining the processes very specifically and walking you through the calculations necessary to design the systems. So, very equation heavy, and thus not what I generally recommend to most people who don't have to be designing one.
Have you read through, or seen the lectures of, Architect William McDonough? I'd guess you have, depending on what school you went through. But if not, you should seek those out. I'm just guessing that angle on it may be more what you're looking for than the comparatively uninteresting intro to environmental engineering textbooks I'm thinking of. Those and a bunch of landscape planning ones, like this one, which you may have already had in class.
Beak of the Finch, I guess, but that's pretty basic.
Nature's Numbers perhaps, but it needs some updating.
For self-sustainment, maybe "EcoVillage at Ithaca: Pioneering a Sustainable Culture"? I'm trying to think of ones that don't require the common structural engineering core sequence of classes as a background, and struggling.
Seeing an old Joel Achenbach article yesterday reminded me of how I used to appreciate how his, and David Quammen's, articles/writings would start out being about a particular subject, but end up touching at least a bit on the pitfalls of for- and not-for-profit organizations trying to work in these areas. That part's interesting and useful to ponder.
https://www.amazon.com/Physics-Scientists-Engineers-Foundations-Connections/dp/0534466850
https://www.amazon.com/Landscape-Man-Environment-Prehistory-Expanded/dp/0500278199
https://www.amazon.com/Design-Land-Development-Landscape-Architecture/dp/0674198700
https://www.amazon.com/Landscapes-History-2nd-Philip-Pregill/dp/0471293288
All I'm saying is that if neighbors would like to convert a public street into a private parking lot, they ought to pay for that privilege. I'm not actually opposed to PPDs, I just felt someone should respond to /u/kheszi.
Parking requirements are actually a pretty thorny subject when you look at them close. If you're interested I recommend Donald Shoup's work.
There is no such thing as free parking. It cost money to build and maintain parking spaces, and that cost typically gets past on through the resident via either rent or purchase price. You pay for the premium weather you want to or not, but by requiring parking by law, you force others to pay for the premium as well.
If you're interested, I would recommend The High Cost of Free Parking by Donald Shoup
I also recommend this book for those who are really interested in the subject.
From a review: " Shoup zeroes in on the reason for such problems: we assume that parking should be free. Shoup points out that if we decided that gasoline should be free, the result we would expect would be obvious: people would drive too much, shortages of gasoline would develop, fights would break out over scarce gas, and governments would go broke trying to pay for it all. Shoup shows that parking is no different. Providing free parking leads to overuse, shortages, and conflicts over parking. Cash-strapped local governments and neighborhoods lose out, too. Free parking is like a fertility drug for cars. Many people don't realize how much of the high price of housing is due to requirements by local governments that a certain number of parking spaces must be provided. These costs are paid by everyone, including those who don't own a car."
I remember this book having some good essays on Kiley and some of his contemporaries. Modern Landscape Architecure: A Critical Review
Parking is expensive. This book is a great read on that: http://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X
Check out Creating the Prairie Xeriscape. Great book, all the info you need to set up a low maintenance garden that can withstand northern winters.
Actually, many transit agencies do charge pass holders for parking. Just like hospitals do.
If you want to learn more about why that's a good thing, feel free to read The High Cost of Free Parking
There's a theory floating around that increasing the number of parking spaces in a neighborhood actually has a negative effect.
It's debatable, but seems to resonate a lot with people here.
Nope. You should read this book: http://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking/dp/1884829988
Do you do construction? Engineering? The only direction someone has their hands on the scale is towards cheaper. Just because you want it cheaper doesn't make it cheaper to build and operate.
Go read about just how much money is given to the cause of cheap and free parking: https://www.amazon.ca/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X
In the US at least (and Canada will match this), its BY FAR the biggest government program of any kind.
Sometimes it's good to provide info and let people come to their own conclusions. If you're interested in how parking policy shapes land-use, affordability and opportunity in cities here's a great read. I can lend you my copy if you like. https://www.amazon.ca/High-Cost-Free-Parking/dp/193236496X
The High Cost Of Free Parking
You should check out this great book when you get a chance. We are all paying a lot for "free" parking, and those costs are often unfairly passed on to people who don't or can't drive to subsidize drivers.
For the wonks out there, check out the book "The High Cost of Free Parking." Made a lot waves when it came out in 2011.
This book has great essays from a number of very famous and influential designers: http://www.amazon.com/Theory-Landscape-Architecture-Reader-Studies/dp/0812218213
Also this is a Q&A that gives a better look into an individual process: http://www.amazon.com/Landscape-Cabinet-Curiosities-Search-Position/dp/3037783044
> If we start charging for parking everywhere in the city neighborhoods will see less traffic, but less people will be interested in going in to check out the stores/restaurants/events.
Or you know, maybe more people will walk/bike/take transit.
Parking is one of the largest subsidies to SOV drivers. Professor Donald Shoup lays it all out in The High Cost of Free Parking.
Hah. This article has the gall to cite Donald Shoup while complaining about taking away free on-street parking?
Perhaps they should have a read through The High Cost of Free Parking and then revisit this article.
Interesting point but I disagree.
You're citing Donald Shoup, the author of the paper I linked above. He did the full economic analysis and believes that we should eliminate parking minimums.
He also is very clear that we should charge appropriate prices for street parking.
Eliminating parking minimums is not a subsidy to property developers and property owners. Charging below-market fees for street parking is.
Since you cited Shoup as your primary evidence, in addition the the previously-linked article (http://shoup.bol.ucla.edu/Trouble.pdf), I'd also check out his book https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X (paper here http://www.uctc.net/research/papers/351.pdf)
[Longer-term, I suspect that self-driving cars are going to make it so that we call cars using our phones. They'll actually park farther away from the denser areas where people live. In that case, I hope we don't cast huge parking lots into concrete when they could be built into things that have productive use.]
> It didn't spread out because cars take up room.
Yes it did. Building car parks and highways causes sprawl.
Read anything about the history and causes of suburban sprawl and you'll find out that this is exactly what happened.
You can tell that this is the case because in places like Amsterdam where they didn't do this, people generally don't own cars, and bike everywhere.
Read this for instance: https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X
Or just watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odF4GSX1y3c
George Costanza, the quintessential New Yorker, once said, "My father didn't pay for parking, my mother, my brother, nobody. It's like going to a prostitute. Why should I pay when, if I apply myself, maybe I can get it for free?" The High Cost of Free Parking, Donald Shoup's 733-page tour de force, has the answer. With the exception of a Monopoly board, there is no such thing as free parking. In fact, free parking turns out to be the biggest problem you never thought about. "We all want to park free," Shoup writes. "But we also want to reduce traffic congestion, energy consumption and air pollution. We want affordable housing, efficient transportation, green space, good urban design, great cities and a healthy economy. Unfortunately, ample free parking conflicts with all these other goals."
Undskyld, det meste af det kommer fra mit urban economics fag på min udveksling.
Jeg remser ikke negative ting op om biler. Jeg remser ting op ved biler, som koster andre end bilisten penge, som bilisten ikke fuldt ud selv betaler for uden en skat på kørsel.
Man forsinker andre, fordi andre biler gør at du kommer langsommere frem (når der ikke er så mange har det ikke den store effekt). Jo flere biler der er, jo mere er der tendens til køer. Jeg har et powerpoint slide fra min undervisning. https://imgur.com/a/MxI7c og her https://imgur.com/a/zxGdu. For at opsummere: "congestion" fører til forlænget rejsetid (34 timer pr. pendler om året), spildt brændstof (2,2% af årligt forbrug), forhøjet CO2 udslip (18 mio tons/året), forurening er årsagen til 8.600 "premature" fødsler, hvor den største omkostning er den forlængede rejsetid, idet den rejsetid kunne have været bedre brugt på f.eks. arbejde.
I Toronto er prisen for trængsel estimeret til at være 3,3 milliarder dollars + 2,7 milliarder dollars fra mistet BNP fra tiden brugt i trafik i stedet for arbejde. http://www.metrolinx.com/en/regionalplanning/costsofcongestion/costs_congestion.aspx
Ja en benzinbil forurener både globalt og lokalt. En elbil forurener kun globalt og det afhænger af hvor effektivt og grøn ens energi produktion er. Derfor giver det mening at afgiften på den her front er lidt mindre for elbilen.
Risiko for uheld: Der sker biluheld. Det koster både i skader og sundhedsvæsenet. Skaderne kan spores tilbage til bilerne. Teknisk set hvis nogle biler er sikre end andre og derfor har en mindre risiko for uheld, så bør de have en mindre skat, men man skal også huske at når der bliver reklameret for at en bil er sikker, er den så sikker for chaufføren og passagererne eller alle andre? (nok mest chaufføren og passagererne).
Skade på vejene. Når biler - specielt tunge biler - bruger vejene, slider de dem - går specielt ud over broer. Med tiden kommer der huller og andre skader, som så kræver vejarbejde, som koster penge.
Ulemperne ved trængsel, forurening og biluheld er kort gjort op her i den meget berømte bog, Freakonomics, af Steven Levitt og Stephen Dubner: http://imgur.com/a/QWm4z - her bliver det faktisk understreget at forurening ikke er bilers største omkostning:
Mere vejplads: Alle vejene er blevet bygget for bilister. Derfor giver det mening at bilister betaler prisen det har kostet af bygge vejene for at bruge dem på en måde der sikrer at det går lige op. En gang var vejene faktisk privatejede og man betalte en afgift for at køre på dem, men nu bliver det anset som et offentligt gode. Cliff Winston snakker her (dog kontroversielt blandt selv økonomer) om hvordan toge, lufthavne og veje burde være privatejede: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2013/10/winston_on_tran.html
Andre økonomer ville mene at mange at problemerne ville kunne løses ved bare at give færre subsidier til veje, lufthavne og toge og samtidigt skabe betaling for vejene.
Den her artikel forklarer noget af det: http://www.citylab.com/commute/2015/01/the-real-reason-us-gas-is-so-cheap-is-americans-dont-pay-the-true-cost-of-driving/384200/ - se skemaet over omkostningerne.
Andet godt læseligt (ift. parkering):
https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&me=
There aren't really any places where lots could be built for cities. The best solution is to keep them off the roads and put them underneath the hospital buildings, even though that'll cost even more money to build.
In any case parking isn't a thing the city should be encouraging. This book makes a great case, but building parking is really expensive and already massively subsidized. It also encourages people to drive, and surface parking isn't just a blight on urban areas (inhospitable for people), but contributes significant to Urban Heat Island Effect).
Design with Nature by Ian McHarg
I started reading this one a while ago, but was sidetracked by life and it sat collecting dust. I just started it again, but haven't gone very far. This book is supposed to be the bible for planners and landscape architects, so I'm excited to get back into it.
I just finished reading Need for the Bike by Paul Fournel. This book is a collection of short stories and musings written by a lifetime cyclist. He does an amazing job conveying feelings associated with biking and I devoured this book much quicker than I expected. My wife bought it for me for Christmas because it was supposed to be similar to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values, another book I really enjoyed.
I also finally finished The Landscape of Man, which I had been working through. I still don't see how this one was supposed to impact me as much as others claim it should, but it was an interesting read.
Yes, and we subsidize an oversupply of parking to start with! http://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking/dp/1884829988
I guess that Mr Shoup was right!
Yep, that's exactly the problem, there's a huge underlying problem that needs to be solved, but the benefits of solving it are very hard to prove.
Donald Shoup (as much as I hate giving a bruin credit) is doing really good work looking at the overall problem of parking, he literally wrote the book on it: http://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Parking-Updated-Edition/dp/193236496X
The American Technological Sublime
One of the few books I kept and re-read after college.
And
London: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd
The author covers everything from the Romans to the 20th Century in such a way that you feel like you are breathing in time with the city and your heartbeats are synchronized. That was cheeesy, sorry. The sensation in hard to explain. The appendix is massive. There's even an entire essay on sources, and there are tons of primary sources.
>But it would appear that the argument is that parking needs to be priced accordingly to cost of maintained the parking structure of what-have-you.
Nope, I'm not. Never have, never will.
Parking needs to be priced at the rate that will leave enough spaces free at any given time that people seeking parking can find a space in their first try, rather than circling. Fines have to be set at a rate where people feel that the risk of the fine is great enough that they'll pay the meter. Given how high our rate of unpaid meters is in Los Angeles, our fines aren't high enough (though I think this is more about average fines... in other words, rather than increasing the dollar amount of the fine further, I think we need to increase the chance you will get a ticket, but that's another discussion.)
That article, BTW, is one of his first efforts on the subject. The book was published in 2011. Since then, there have been a lot of other articles. Municipal parking garages are definitely a piece of the puzzle (he's opposed to requiring businesses to build in their own parking, for a lot of good reasons), but they don't really interact with meter rates. Instead, they're supported by their own parking fees and in-lieu fees from businesses who get exemptions from parking requirements.
Read up: http://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/1884829988/ref=redir_mdp_mobile
Site Engineering for Landscape Architects
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1118090861/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1500991883&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=site+engineering+for+landscape+architects&dpPl=1&dpID=51BTZZf5NTL&ref=plSrch
Recommended reading for individuals who don't actually know anything about parking policy: The High Cost of Free Parking
, Walkable City
Noise is a commons, and in order to prevent abuse, we usually allow government to regulate the use of commons. Limits on noise are perfectly reasonable, and in fact desirable.
Free parking is anything but - urban land is expensive. "Free parking" just means "subsidized by everyone else" parking. I don't see why someone too poor to own a motorbike/car should be subsidizing the parking of someone who can afford one.
I recommend reading the whole book if you get the chance
Free parking is literally one of the worst things ever to happen to cities.
The High Cost of Free Parking, Updated Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/193236496X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_saYUDb65AC042
And actually, NO, I'm going to completely approve this.
Dallas needs more density and less parking surface lots. Areas with balanced density are areas with focused economic/business/life activity.
Read a book, bro
You haven't answered the question of whether or not the DHA has addressed your issues. What's your motive for wanting to deny requests? What other issues are you envisioning? How can they be addressed?
Parking is a low value use of land which discourages the growth of public transit. There is no good reason for LA to be mandating anyone build more parking than makes economic sense.
I refer you to this book for a good description of why the quest for too much free parking just makes cities worse places to live.
How is posting the truth of the situation "heels dug in?" Everyone used public transportation or walking for almost all of human history and most nations do so except one really big standout; the USA.
I have an issue because I've read about how cars have changed the American landscape, from creating the idea of personal debt in America, or how they are an unfair cost burdening the lower class.
All without even talking about the terrible environmental impact they've had on our society. Cars are really, really bad and we should be having a hair on fire moment to change that now.
Read Me!
Y'all might not want to realize the implications of this, but I strongly encourage you to read The High Cost of Free Parking.
This is a plagiarized title and most of the content is probably plagiarized too. https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X
It's not begrudging, I simply don't see why parking should be free.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/business/economy/15view.html
http://freakonomics.com/2013/03/13/parking-is-hell-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/
http://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Parking-Updated-Edition/dp/193236496X
http://www.uctc.net/research/papers/351.pdf