Q&A: UCLA’s parking guru Donald Shoup

Donald Shoup, distinguished professor of urban planning in the Luskin School of Public Affairs, has become the nation’s oft-quoted, go-to expert on parking. He was recently named one of the world’s Top 100 City Innovators Worldwide by UBM Future Cities. The author of “The High Cost of Free Parking,” Shoup has inspired a growing number of cities to charge fair market prices for on-street parking and remove off-street parking requirements.

He recently sat down with Matt Hurst, a writer at the Luskin School, to talk briefly about his favorite subject. Here is an edited Q&A.

How did you get interested in parking?

I backed in. Initially, I did research on land economics, and I realized that parking is a land market few academics had studied, perhaps because parking has such low status. In academia, international affairs have the most prestige, national affairs are a step down, state government is even lower, and local government seems parochial. Then, within local government, parking is probably the lowest rung on the status ladder.So I was a bottom feeder, but there was a lot of food down there.

Why is parking an important land market?

In most cities, the footprint of parking is bigger…

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