DMB Digest: Romancing the Parking Lot
Times are a changing.
We’ve well established that I’m an odd cookie. But I’d venture I’m not the only one who has spent many hours over the years pondering the idea of a better American city. Since I was maybe twelve, I’ve dreamed of utopian societies where everything functioned as it was intended. At some point in my teens, I landed on the existence of parking lots as a central hurdle to healthier cities.
Here I am thirty-five years later still thinking the same thing. Of course, this isn’t an original thought. There have been opponents to car culture since the 50’s when America barreled headlong down that road. Having traveled around the world a bit, I’ve had a few experiences outside of car culture. Scooter culture. Train culture. Alternatives exist. But here in the States, we’re still stuck with all the Frankenstein consequences of owning an overabundance of personal automobiles.
Did you know that the surface area of several American cities are composed of one-third parking spaces? One third parking spots. That’s like finding out one third of everyday is spent sleeping. Architecture is dictated by parking spaces and car holes. Zoning is dominated by the need for parking spaces. The structure of neighborhoods (and ghettos) all dictated by cars. And Americans have been force-fed all of this nonsense for over seventy-five years thanks to the coordinated efforts of the automotive (ie. big oil) and housing construction industries (ie. developers).
It turns out that urban sprawl can be highly profitable for developers, automotive companies, and oil companies. Who would have thunk it?
Fast-forward to today, and something interesting is developing among young Americans. Kids don’t like cars. Or at least fewer and fewer teens are finding individuality in their auto ownership. My oldest son drives now. But he doesn’t seem interested in blinging out his car in the slightest. He’s driving the old family Toyota. The radio doesn’t even work. He don’t care. He still walks places if they are within a few blocks. If he needs to go somewhere important to him, he drives. It’s like the car is simply an instrument for getting from point A to point B and back. That’s it.
For me, my car meant independence. It meant freedom. The open road represented new opportunities and new adventures awaiting. Things I had never seen or experienced. People I had never met. For my sons, the road is simply a path taking them somewhere other than home. Meh. I mean, you can go there with Google Earth and never even have to leave the house. You can learn new languages with Duolingo. Meet new people over Discord. What’s the point of driving when you have Youtube?
The car is losing its romantic hold over the populous. It’s only a matter of time. High gas prices, expensive maintenance, hazardous road conditions, more convenient virtual connectivity, online shopping, same-day delivery. All these things are adding up to a different mindset. Granted, I live in a small city. Not in the country. But guess where most people in America live? (Hint: the answer is in cities.)
Gridlocked traffic in dense urban areas and the strained-to-busted supply chain logistics of the world we’ve built are applying pressure as well. It’s only a matter of time. Mass transit, especially rail systems, will return from their woefully neglected state across the United States. Once the population no longer cares for dumping up to a quarter of their income into car loans and maintenance, the rest of the dominoes will fall within the blink of an eye.
It’s been a fun century, but the age of song lyrics like “cut loose like a deuce, another runner in the night" is coming to an end. (I’m referring to the original Bruce Springsteen version.) Over the next century, we can expect lyrics like, “Swaying to the rhythm of the commuter train, making eyes at the girl across the way.” And I think that will be a good thing.
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