Analysis Of Donald Shoup's The High Cost Of Free Parking

Discussing the implications of free parking in the United States, Donald Shoup’s “The High Cost of Free Parking” is a work that successfully critiques a specific part of car centric America: free parking. In the first chapter, the readers are introduced to the “free parking problem.” Shoup demonstrates that off-street free parking requirements spread the cost of parking into a higher cost of goods elsewhere and further incentivize the automobile. Furthermore, through the common emphasis that parking must be free, curb parking with no monetary or time limit increases congestion and wastes travel time. By presenting the problems of parking in a way that can be understood by anyone, Shoup shows the vastness of the issue to an audience who themselves

This is done intentionally to educate the readers on the consequences of free parking as well as advocate for alternative forms of transportation. These alternative forms are brought up, but not directly pushed onto the reader. On the contrary, Shoup treats these alternative methods of travel as normal and common place. While walking, biking, and public transport are used regularly in many places, Shoup is tailoring his piece to the reader who only uses their car for traveling between work, school, stores, and other destinations. This is because someone who regularly uses alternative forms of transport in the heavily car centric United States has likely put some thought into the overuse of parking spaces. This makes the almost exclusive personal automobile user the perfect candidate to read Shoup’s work. The chapter is further tailored to this audience by avoiding urban planning jargon and by using examples that make each point understandable and real to an everyday person. To make the free parking problem an issue that readers can feel personally involved in, Shoup quotes New York Times Columnist David Brooks. The excerpt from Brooks is about a mall with typical stores like Walmart, Bed Bath and Beyond, and Old Navy found across the United States. He describes the parking lots that surround these large shopping centers: extensive asphalt lots stretching as far as