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The High Cost of Free Parking, Updated Edition Updated Edition

by Donald Shoup (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars 33 customer reviews
ISBN-13: 978-1932364965
ISBN-10: 193236496X
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 800 pages
  • Publisher: APA Planners Press; Updated edition (June 21, 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 193236496X
  • ISBN-13: 978-1932364965
  • Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1.5 x 9.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #150,260 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsA solution to parking problems and traffic congestion
By Paula L. Craig on February 9, 2006
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
This book is a detailed analysis of parking problems and their solution. 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 agree with Shoup that free parking is the great blind spot of American local politics. I recall vividly a couple of years ago I was attending a church service when it was suddenly interrupted by a person from the neighborhood, screaming that churchgoers had used all the parking spaces in front of his house AGAIN. I could understand why he was upset, because Sunday mornings did cause a serious parking shortage in the streets around the church. Shoup shows how to solve such difficulties: instead of putting in burdensome regulations about who can park where and when, just charge the market price for parking spaces, and make sure most or all of the money goes to the local neighborhood for improved public services. A high price for parking spaces on Sunday would have led churchgoers to find other options, like walking or carpooling.Read more ›
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4.0 out of 5 starsTotally worth it
By Aaron Swartz on June 5, 2009
Format: Hardcover
Come on, I know what you're thinking. There's no way you'd want to read an 800-page book about parking, let alone pay $60 for it. That's what I thought too.

Amazingly, I was wrong. Shoup shows how the simple matter of providing some free parking kicks off a chain reaction that leads to disastrous effects. First there's just a little free parking space in front of your house. But then a store opens down the street and its customers start taking your spot. So you demand the store provide enough parking for its customers. Which means the store gets pushed back from the street by its huge new parking lot. Which means nobody wants to walk to it, so more people start driving. Which means it needs more parking and more roads and more traffic cops and more cruising for parking and more sprawl and more pollution and on and on.

Shoup provides a simple solution to this madness: performance parking. If you provided everyone with free ice cream, you'd always have lines around the block. You'd go bankrupt from trying to make sure you always had enough supplies. You'd reorient your whole economy around ice cream. But luckily, we don't do that. We charge the market rate for ice cream. Shoup's simple suggestion: do the same for parking. Install parking meters that talk to each other and figure out how much parking is available and automatically adjust the price to ensure that 15% of the spots are always free. Imagine: no more looking for parking, a parking space always available.

Shoup has a political plan for getting there as well, involving playing one neighborhood off another. But I've given enough away already; perhaps you should just read the book.
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4.0 out of 5 starsExcellent analysis, ahead of its time
By Tom Cat on August 13, 2006
Format: Hardcover
In 100 years, people will look back on this book and realize its value. For now, though, it's far too rational to be of much practical use to planners, engineers or politicians. For anyone who ever imagined that parking requirements were established in accordance with scientific criteria, The High Cost of Free Parking should disabuse them of that notion permanently. Shoup recognizes all too well that parking requirements are imposed merely as a knee-jerk reaction to public fears rather than as a practicable solution to an actual problem. His solutions, though well intended, will undoubtedly fall on deaf ears in most instances--until the price of gas is at $30 per gallon and suddenly there are no cars to fill those free parking lots anymore.
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3.0 out of 5 starsInteresting but ponderous
By Chris Mason on May 6, 2013
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
I bought this book on the recommendation of the blogger Matthew Yglesias. I agree that it's an important text in understanding economic externalities. The arguments made are clear, structured and mercifully don't require pre-existing knowledge or jargon. The structure of these arguments was unfortunately to smash you with a tidal wave of evidence over many, many chapter with quite similar prose descriptions and interpretations. Unfortunately, even though the points were well made, they were made so often that I lost interest. Hopefully I will one day finish this (enormous) book since I learned so much from the first 2/3 but for now let me just agree we should have market rate parking and move on with my life.
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5.0 out of 5 starsImportant book, please read
By Bruce on November 28, 2014
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
This book should be required reading for anybody who drives, or walks where cars are driven. This book does a brilliant job of pointing out the many distortions and problems caused by the almost universal expectation that parking should be free. Parking, in cities, is an incredibly valuable resource but because it is often free or underpriced it is used inefficiently. This ultimately benefits no one. The crazy (illogical, unjustified, counter productive) parking requirements in most cities zoning laws force developers to build massive amounts of parking to justify the powerful demand for free parking. If chocolate/liquor/cocaine were free then they would be overused and there would be shortages, so we shouldn't be surprised that the same thing happens with parking.

My only complaint about this book is that it is too big. I wish that it was half the size with better summaries and less redundancy. But, well worth getting, reading, and sharing.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsObvi

If you're looking at this text, then you know how good it is. Finally in a less expensive paperback, there's no more excuses for lazy Shoup-citations anytime you mention parking... Read more

Published 16 months ago by Kristina C.
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Very nice book

Published 16 months ago by Illia Solodovskyy
5.0 out of 5 starsThe last word on parking by the dean of parking ...

The last word on parking by the dean of parking. If you read just one book on the topic, this should be the book.

Published 17 months ago by Wm E Kirk
4.0 out of 5 starsFour Stars

The material of the pages it's not very good.

Published 21 months ago by Alisson Chaves Matos
5.0 out of 5 starsWould easily buy again

This book makes me angry. And the author is a bit of an elitist snotbag. But he backs his arguments up well. As for the seller, the shipping was quick and painless. Read more

Published 21 months ago by Bob
4.0 out of 5 starsright thinking approach

Best parking book I ever read.

Published 23 months ago by Danny C Pleasant
1.0 out of 5 starsIvory Tower Baloney

As extensive as it is, "The High Cost of Parking" is merely a regurgitation of well-worn ideas that generally originate from consultants working for large scale developers... Read more

Published on July 16, 2014 by Able Devildog
5.0 out of 5 starsThe bible on Parking

This enormous and masterful book is the definitive study on parking. It covers way more than most people will ever need to know but if you are in anyway involved in civic issues,... Read more

Published on June 1, 2014 by P. Mulloy
5.0 out of 5 starsIf you live in a city, town, or county, and/or pay any taxes, Parking...

Building parking costs our municipalities, businesses we shop at, schools we attend (or pay tuition at for our kids!) a lot of money! Read more

Published on April 27, 2014 by Danny
5.0 out of 5 starsGreat book with great ideas

Really puts things into perspective. They even have a facebook group named after the Author for post reading activities and understanding how best to remove free parking

Published on April 19, 2014 by Yitch

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