Parking Lots

Historic planning documents, like those found in the APA's Planning Advisory Service, are full of lessons about how past planning doctrines failed their intentions, and it's always a good time for planners to re-evaluate their antecedents.

March 3, 2015 - Strong Towns

It's unclear who exactly is behind the Philly Parking Wasteland website, but it is clear that the site exists to excoriate the mismanagement of land for the purposes of parking around the city of Philadelphia.

February 28, 2015 - Philly Parking Wasteland

New apps have the potential to influence a fundamental shift in the political and physical realities of parking according to a recent Next City article.

January 26, 2015 - Next City

ProMedica is a locally owned nonprofit healthcare organization that is in the process of moving 900 employees from various suburban locations in the Toledo area into its newly renovated riverfront headquarters in Downtown Toledo.

November 14, 2014 - The Toledo Blade

Here's one you probably didn't see coming. A recent pair of articles makes the case for preservationists to find ways to protect surface parking lots.

June 5, 2014 - Public History Commons

To create more active and economically healthy downtowns, cities are seeking development on parking lots.

April 12, 2014 - Newsweek

A proposal to tax and eventually prohibit parking lots in Portland’s Old Town Chinatown is pitting two powerful figures in Portland’s downtown land use politics against each other.

April 10, 2014 - The Oregonian

Fast Co.Exist presents the work of the Long Island Index, which recently undertook a creative problem solving exercise to explore ways that suburban parking lots could encourage more walkable conditions.

March 12, 2014 - Fast Co.Exist

While some may argue that an award-winning parking project is any that doesn't get built, the International Parking Institute has identified projects from across the country that have taken parking lot innovation to the next level.

June 20, 2012 - The Atlantic Cities

Eran Ben-Joseph pens an opinion piece in The New York Times calling for the transformation of the parking lot to capture its true value as a public space.

March 27, 2012 - The New York Times

With perhaps as many as 2 billion parking spaces in the US, planners and architects should "take seriously" the parking lot as an actual, useful public space.

January 7, 2012 - The New York Times

Though much of its urban form requires a car to traverse, a few new projects in Miami are shifting the city away from its past of parking lot sprawl.

July 21, 2011 - Wallpaper

Cities plan to cut off individual parking garages is a gamble, says Josie Garthwaite in National Geographic -- yet making it impossible to park is one of the few yet most effective tools that reduces driving.

July 20, 2011 - National Geographic

New parks -- even very small ones -- can have a major impact on the way cities and communities are revitalized, according to this post.

July 9, 2011 - Planet Forward

DJDave, aka David Wittman, spoofs L.A. culture and the politics of the parking lot in this clever video.

June 17, 2011 - YouTube

Beyond the fact that supplying lots of parking encourages driving, a new study quantifies the environmental impact of parking lot construction.

January 12, 2011 - The Infrastructurist

A meeting last week at the Regional Planning Commission attracted dozens of speakers angry with L.A. County's plans to change the zoning around the marina to allow new development of apartments and retail spaces.

November 8, 2010 - The Los Angeles Times

A new Safeway in Washington, D.C. is breaking the mold in grocery design by tucking the parking away behind the entrance and putting the market upstairs in a 2-story building, with smaller shops for lease on the street.

June 22, 2010 - The Washington Post

Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute proposes renovating city parking lots into actual parks would go a long way to improving the air quality of cities.

June 8, 2010 - AutoBlogGreen

This post from The Overhead Wire looks at the impact of parking lot sprawl in American downtowns -- and finds a striking resemblance between those downtowns and bomb-ravaged cities from World War Two.

February 22, 2010 - The Overhead Wire