PARKING: How It Explains the World

The Next Big Idea

Next Big Idea Club

Social Sciences, Society & Culture, Education, Science

4.4 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 29 June 2023

⏱️ 67 minutes

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Summary

For decades, urban planners have blanketed our cities with the cheap and convenient car storage known as parking. They've swapped sidewalks for strip malls and bulldozed bright, inviting storefronts to make room for dark, urine-scented parking garages. In some downtowns, more land is now devoted to parking than buildings. Parking profligacy has left us with cities that are polluted and hostile to pedestrians; they're also increasingly unaffordable because legally required parking can drive up the cost of residential construction by 25 percent. In "Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World," journalist Henry Grabar dares to imagine a future in which we knock parking off its pedestal by enacting new laws, adopting new attitudes, and embracing new technologies (like e-bikes and autonomous cars) that make our cities greener, friendlier, safer, and more fun.

Transcript

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0:00.0	LinkedIn presents.
0:06.6	I'm Rufus Griskem, and this is the next big idea.
0:10.8	Today, how parking ruined our cities and what we can do about it.
0:31.0	On April 22nd, 1992, 18 million Americans, I was one of them, tuned into Seinfeld to watch George Costanza look for a parking space.
0:43.0	I have my system first. I look for the dream spot right in front of the door, and I slowly expand out in concentric circuits.
0:50.0	Now come on George, please put it in a garage. I don't want to spend an hour looking for space.
0:55.0	Get parking a garage. Why?
0:58.0	I don't know, I just can't. Nobody in my family can pay for parking. It's a sickness.
1:03.0	Father never paid for parking. My mother and my brother, nobody. We can't do it.
1:07.0	Today, however, is George's lucky day. He finds the dream spot and starts to parallel park. But then...
1:15.0	Hey, what are you doing? I think I'm parking my car. You can't do that. You can't just sneak in from the bank like that.
1:22.0	I'm not sneaking. I didn't even know you were parking. You were just sitting there free spaces up.
1:27.0	What if you didn't think I was parking? Why did you put it in head first?
1:30.0	Well, that's the way I park. Anyway, you didn't start back in until I pulled in. I was in the middle of a conversation.
1:36.0	Hey buddy, what can I tell you? The point is, I was here first.
1:40.0	I was closer to this space than you were. But I'm back again. You can't put it in head first.
1:45.0	I can if I have room!
1:47.0	It's a classic sign felt setup. Take a relatable problem, the difficulty of finding parking, and push it to absurd heights.
1:56.0	George and that guy don't just bicker for a few minutes, they stay there for hours unwilling to budge.
2:04.0	The episode ends before their fight is resolved, but presumably it is resolved peacefully.
2:11.0	Which is more than can be said for parking disputes in the real world.
2:15.0	New attend a Danville man said he was punched repeatedly in the face by a driver who wanted his parking spot.
	...

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