City Life

In nearly every American city, state and local ordinances dictate the minimum number of parking spaces required for everything from homes and restaurants to retail. Many of these regulations have remained unchanged since the 1960s, forcing today’s businesses, residents and cities to conform to the outdated priorities of planners from generations ago.

In Dallas, for example, regulations dating back to 1965 thwarted German Sierra’s plans to open a humble coffee shop and community space in 2022. Despite doing everything the city recommended to be granted a parking exemption, Dallas was unwilling to let Sierra open Graph Coffee unless he provided 18 parking spots, amounting to more square footage than his property possessed.

Sierra’s struggle highlights the uncompromising realities of parking minimums, which put undue strain on small businesses. At the same time, his story also highlights the arbitrary calculus that characterizes these regulations. For example, Dallas has drawn a distinction between a “dry cleaner” and a “laundry service” through its code, mandating that the former must provide 30% more parking than the latter even though critics argue they’re effectively the same use. Earlier this year, the Washington Post reported that San Jose, California, at one point required miniature golf courses to have 1.25 parking spaces per golf tee. In Seattle, bowling alleys needed five spaces per lane.

Ending the mandates and subsidies that require property owners to waste productive land on automobile storage is a priority for Strong Towns. We recognize that empty parking lots are financially unproductive, costly to maintain, and often in conflict with the types of places cities across North America want to be.

Fortunately, a rapidly growing number of cities across North America are beginning to question mandatory minimums, inching toward reforming or even repealing them altogether. Here are some of the communities rethinking their approaches.