“Paved Paradise”

Henry Grabar

Be still, my urbanist heart.

I loved this book. Being me, I probably still would’ve enjoyed it even if it was textbook-dry, dully reciting the history of parking policy in the United States, breaking for the occasional multi-page table of data. But that’s not what this book was. This was a wonderfully well-written piece, going through the surprisingly entertaining history of parking policy and arriving at the current state of affairs. (In retrospect, it should’ve been obvious that parking lots were ripe for corruption — in the same way that the number of gym memberships sold has very little correlation with the occupancy of the gym, nobody knows the actual occupancy rate of a parking lot, so if it’s operating on cash… who’s to know that you pocketed half the day’s receipts?)

I’d actually listened to two different podcast episodes about this book before picking it up to read, so I was already filled in on the key points, but I don’t think the book lost anything for that. It was the details that really captivated me—little mentions of things like “UPS got a $6 million discount on their New York City parking tickets by agreeing to pay them in bulk instead of individually disputing each one,” which by the omission really emphasizes exactly how many parking citations UPS picks up in NYC in a given year.

And I actually came out of this one feeling particularly optimistic. Not only do I live in one of the places that’s making a fair amount of the right sorts of moves to undo all that historic damage, but I’m also at the right time. We just came out of the pandemic, and boy was that ever a time for people to learn that… we can be doing better things with all that space? Outdoor seating at restaurants is great! Pedestrianized streets are awesome!

So hey, go read this one, it was super interesting. Absolutely worth the read.1

This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩