Churches occupy an awkward spot in the parking debate. Their parking lots are necessary, but only a couple of times a week. Otherwise, the lots sit empty, wasting valuable land. How can churches and cities handle this problem? Here are three possibilities.
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East Grand Avenue in St. Paul, Minnesota, manages to maintain a unique and magical sense of place even while being car-centric. Here’s how it does it, and how other cities can design their built environments to capture that sense of place.
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Car-sharing gives people the perks of a private vehicle without the hassles of owning one, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. Here's how urbanists can use this car-rental model to strengthen their communities.
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City engineers rely on faulty logic and misrepresentations to maintain the status quo. This was made blatantly clear in a recent letter from the City Engineers Association of Minnesota (CEAM) — and it’s why a growing number of engineers are breaking from the party line to support reform. Here are CEAM’s top four arguments against parking reform and why they’re wrong.
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With work patterns shifting as technology advances, retrofitting suburban office buildings has become increasingly important to developers and planners. Here are five ways you can make your office building more appealing and resilient.
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Last week in Colorado, advocates for people-centered cities and incremental housing pulled off a massive win, sending a bill package full of land-use reforms to be signed into state law. Here’s how they did it.
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Do you know what it's like to have your housing be dependent on a country club membership that you can't afford? Renters across the United States do, as they're forced to pay for amenities like private parking spaces or pool access — even if they never use them.
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Do you have a favorite food truck? These micro businesses are often features of their communities, and they represent an important stage of incremental development. But strict zoning laws can put these businesses at risk. Hot Dog House FL learned this the hard way when parking mandates evicted them from their main operating location.
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When the owners of Lawrence Hall bought the abandoned building, they had a vision of reviving it into a food hall that would support small businesses and help their community thrive. They never imagined that a few parking spots would put their dream on hold for seven years.
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If offered the choice between paid and free parking, many people would probably choose the latter. But free parking may be creating more problems than it’s worth.
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Dallas wasn't built for the car: it was paved over for it. This new bill can help it rebuild.
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Tony Jordan of the Parking Reform Network and Chris Meyer, legislative assistant to Senator Omar Fateh, talk all things parking reform on this week’s episode of the Strong Towns Podcast.
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Some complain that getting rid of parking mandates is just an underhanded way of making auto use harder and harder in cities. But harder for whom, exactly?
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When trees get cut down to make way for new development, it can raise people’s hackles. But here’s why we can embrace both infill development and still care about our urban trees.
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Local officials in Dallas are considering eliminating minimum parking requirements in the city—and predictably, the measure has both critics and proponents.
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“Abolish parking mandates? But won’t street parking be overrun, if developers aren’t required to provide adequate parking?” If you’ve been asking this question, then this article is for you.
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The parking reform bill Strong Towns has endorsed is necessary to get Minnesota cities unstuck.
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No thanks to parking mandates, it took two years of fighting to get this local coffee shop open in Dallas…but even then, it wasn’t a total win for its owner.
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Minnesota legislators have introduced a bill that would eliminate minimum parking mandates statewide—and Strong Towns was there to cheer them on.
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Your city or town probably needs more housing, but where should it go? This exercise could help you find out.
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