Jeff Speck, co-author of Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream has recently released a book, Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time.
In the book, Speck supports walkability as necessary for safety, health, the environment, and economic vitality. He was interviewed in a recent article in Metropolis Mag and spoke about the importance of walkability. One of the questions raised was about parking – here was his answer:
What I tell the cities that I work in is that parking is not a right. It’s a public good. And it must be managed by the public if it’s going to properly serve the city. When the parking meter was first invented in Oklahoma City, it wasn’t introduced to raise revenue but to help businesses create turnover. Many cities today believe that parking is somehow a civil right. They also believe, incorrectly, that raising the price of parking will hurt business. But my book is not about getting rid of the car; it’s about putting the car in its place. What I see is the dangerous possibility that we will repeat some of the mistakes of the 1960s and 1970s by shutting down streets entirely. What works in New York, where merchants don’t depend on cars for their business, won’t work elsewhere. We’ve already seen that strategy ruin the downtowns of 150 cities in the second half of the twentieth century. So we have to be careful.
Town Hall Seattle is hosting him to speak on this coming Monday, November 19, from 7:30-9:00. Tickets are available online or at the door at 1119 8th Avenue starting at 6:30 pm.
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