Lots of words out there, especially recently, on the role that downtown parking plays in the life of a city.
We’re seeing debates about who lives in the city with the biggest parking deserts, which city parking structures and lots create the worst heat islands and the emergence of “elastic parking spaces” where daytime parking decks become anything from restaurants to play spaces to dance floors after dark.
Here’s a Shane Phillips blog that takes a really interesting look at two recent sets of data. One, a link between the minimum wage and low-income housing affordability, but, more interestingly, two, the link between less downtown parking places and a wider range of more affordable low-income downtown housing.
