InfiniteTypewriters reviewed Paved Paradise by Henry Grabar
Essential reading to understand how our cities and suburbs got this way
5 stars
OK, I surprised myself with this book, and I have to contradict my prior statement. This is the best book I have read in the last ten years or so. My previous champ, Eager by Ben Goldfarb, has slid to second place (you still owe it to yourself to read Eager!).
Paved Paradise is about how the mundane and seemingly boring subject of parking our cars has warped North American cities and suburbs beyond livability. A strong statement, but true.
If you look at the cores of many European cities or of American cities that developed before the dominance of the automobile, you will find the "natural" format of a city. This is the format that people determined was the most efficient and livable urban design. These urban cores consist of buildings of four or five stories. The ground floor is shops with front doors flush with the sidewalk. The …
OK, I surprised myself with this book, and I have to contradict my prior statement. This is the best book I have read in the last ten years or so. My previous champ, Eager by Ben Goldfarb, has slid to second place (you still owe it to yourself to read Eager!).
Paved Paradise is about how the mundane and seemingly boring subject of parking our cars has warped North American cities and suburbs beyond livability. A strong statement, but true.
If you look at the cores of many European cities or of American cities that developed before the dominance of the automobile, you will find the "natural" format of a city. This is the format that people determined was the most efficient and livable urban design. These urban cores consist of buildings of four or five stories. The ground floor is shops with front doors flush with the sidewalk. The floors above are apartments or offices. If you travel outward a short distance into the strictly residential area, you will find not only apartment buildings but also duplexes, triplexes, brownstones, and other sorts of individual family homes that are built up against each other.
These downtown cores are now what is referred to as "15-minute" cities. Everything you need for daily life is within a 15-minute walk of your home. You can walk to the grocery store and buy what you need for tonight's dinner and tomorrow's lunch. There's a drug store and a general merchandise shop and multiple cafes and bars all within a short walk of where you live. Need to go somewhere just a bit farther? Ride a bike on the separated bike path or walk to the subway or streetcar stop. You can have a car if you want one, but you will find that you don't need one most of the time.
Instead, though, we have the mid-20th Century American landscape, which is mostly covered in parking lots.
The advent of the automobile distorted our cities. People drove into downtowns from the suburbs and searched for parking. This caused gridlock as those cars circled the block looking for a parking space. Many people stopped driving into the city, instead opting to drive to the suburban shopping malls, which had loads of "free" parking. Cities responded by opening large multi-story parking garages, often tearing down older (still usable) office buildings or multi-tenant housing to make space.
Since the country was in love with the car, drivers expected to always be able to get a parking space, preferably free, wherever they went. Cities and suburbs added parking minimums to their zoning laws, requiring ample parking for every business.
As new buildings were constructed, they were surrounded by large swathes of surface parking lots. This pushed buildings farther and farther apart. It turned our suburbs into hellscapes of urban sprawl. One big parking lot after one big parking lot, with a big-box store or strip mall in the middle of each. It became impractical and undesirable to walk anywhere. Businesses were too far apart, and the sidewalks along the high-speed stroads between them were too unpleasant and dangerous to use.
Parking minimums have contributed to the housing crisis. The U.S. is several million housing units short of what we need. This shortage has skyrocketed both rents and house prices. This makes affording the monthly rent difficult for many families, and it has pushed the dream of home ownership out of the reach of millions.
Because of parking minimums, every apartment complex or multi-family dwelling must have many parking spaces (often two spaces per apartment). This takes away the number of units that can be built on the property. It also means that each of the apartments that are built has to carry more of the cost of development. The cost of that parking adds anywhere between 10% and 20% to the cost of rent.
It's not just housing. The Empire State Building would be illegal to build by itself today. It would have to be surrounded by 12 blocks of surface parking (or multiple blocks of multi-story garages). Repeat that for every skyscraper in Manhattan, and Manhattan would be mostly parking.
I've just brushed over some of the highlights of this book. It is an immensely fascinating story of how we got into this mess and how many cities are beginning to unwind the damage.
This book is the red pill of urban design. You will never look at our cities and suburbs the same way again. Highly recommended.
