02/06/2025
The more parking your downtown has, the less there is to do. The less there is to do, the less reason there is to visit. The less reason there is to visit, the deader your downtown becomes. It’s a simple formula, yet somehow, cities keep acting like the only way to save their struggling business districts is to bulldoze more buildings and pave more parking lots. Because, you know, nothing says “vibrant urban center” like a half-empty lot surrounded by a few scattered buildings desperately trying to survive.
Here’s the problem: parking lots don’t generate foot traffic. They don’t attract shoppers, diners, or tourists. They don’t create a sense of place. They just sit there, waiting for cars that may or may not come, while actively making everything around them worse. The more space you dedicate to storing vehicles, the less space you have for literally anything that makes a place interesting—shops, restaurants, bars, public spaces, art, housing, businesses, life. And when people do show up, they get to enjoy the scenic beauty of an asphalt wasteland before sprinting across a five-lane road to get to the one surviving café that’s still hanging on.
The cities we love—the ones that feel alive, the ones we actually want to visit—aren’t the ones with the most parking. They’re the ones with the least. They’re walkable, dense, layered with activity. They’re built for people, not cars. Every square foot of real estate in a downtown matters, and the more of it you sacrifice to parking, the more you drain the energy out of the district. It’s a death spiral: businesses struggle because there’s not enough foot traffic, so the city tries to “help” by adding more parking, which spreads things out even more, which makes the place feel even emptier, which makes businesses struggle even more, until eventually, congratulations, you have a downtown that’s really easy to park in because there’s nothing left to go to.
And before someone jumps in with “but people need to drive,” yes, of course. Nobody is saying get rid of all parking. The point is that too much parking is worse than too little. A slight parking inconvenience is a sign of a thriving place. It means people actually want to be there. And if that’s a dealbreaker for someone, guess what? They were never your best customer anyway. The people who are willing to park a few blocks away or, God forbid, use their legs are the ones who actually spend time and money in your businesses. The ones who demand a spot right in front of the door and rage-quit if they have to walk more than 30 feet? They’re not the foundation of a successful district. They’re just loud.
So maybe, instead of sacrificing another block for more surface parking, we could try investing in literally anything else. Like filling in the gaps with actual destinations. Or making it easier to walk between the ones we already have. Or creating public spaces where people want to linger instead of drive through. Because the truth is, no one ever looked back on a great trip and said, “Wow, what a place—I barely had to look for parking.”
