Parking is back in the news, with a high-profile case study: the new spaceship-shaped headquarters of Apple in Cupertino has devoted a larger footprint to parking spaces than office space.
"Apple employees are moving into their new campus in Cupertino, California, called Apple Park, this month," according to an article by Kif Leswing. The 75-acre site will house 14,000 employees and be covered in trees.
But there's a catch: "as much new office space as Apple is building for its new 'spaceship' campus, it actually built more square footage at Apple Park for employees to park their cars."
Leswing has identified this fact out of recent in-depth article by The Economist in the negative externalities of parking. That article begins with the anecdote about parking at the new Apple headquarters before turning to a thorough examination of parking regulations and innovations in pricing parking. The Economist also makes a key point about why there is so much parking at the new Apple headquarters: "Apple is building 11,000 parking spaces not because it wants to but because Cupertino, the suburban city where the new headquarters is located, demands it."
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