1) Personally, I’m inclined to agree that IN GENERAL parking minimums stifle MARKET RATE development. And I think the insight that automobile use in the U.S. is often the beneficiary of hidden subsidies is an important one. However, I think it would be a mistake to then assume that the development of additional parking is always bad for a particular “urban” (see more below) district, or for cities in general.
2) Although many areas of the Bronx may be high-density (relative to the rest of America) and “in theory” have “good” access to public transit (relative to the rest of America), most of them are, nevertheless, not genuinely urban. In other words, you can’t really enjoy living in these areas without having a car. There are often long walks (along desolate streets) to bus stops and subway stops. The Bronx, in particular, is very hilly and getting to a subway / elevated can be very difficult. And subway / bus service can involve very long waits (especially outside of the rush hours). Plus most subway service is to Manhattan and not to other parts of the Bronx.
3) By the way, I’m not saying this is true of the neighborhood surrounding this particular development, as the development seems to be near Belmont, which is one of the more genuinely urban (and nicely so) areas of the Bronx. But, in general, you do not want to live in the Bronx (or much of Brooklyn or Queens) without a car.
4) Personally I have very fond memories of living in the South Bronx, but my father operated a parking lot across the street from our apartment, and we drove virtually everywhere, even into “the city” (except for occasional wonderful trips downtown via the subway).
5) The areas that I think of as being not genuinely urban, but “quasi-urban” instead, are called “gray areas” by Jane Jacob. They are, generally speaking, the areas that are one-time “subway suburbs” (or, in other cities, one-time trolley car suburbs) and they often have the problems of both cities (e.g., congestion) and suburbia (e.g., inaccessibility) without having the benefits of either cities (e.g., vitality) or suburbs (e.g., quiet).
6) One of the major reasons for the Bronx’s precipitous decline, in the opinion of a number of knowledgeable people, was the fact that a great many Bronx neighborhoods sprouted up all at once as subway/trolley car suburbs before WWII and, after WWII, people “with choice” (to use a Jane Jacobs phrase) just didn’t want to live in such neighborhoods anymore. In the Bronx that was built up all at once, you really couldn’t conveniently get anywhere without a car — the neighborhoods were very densely built up when very few people owned cars — but parking (particularly off street parking) was very difficult to find.
7) What’s the “solution”? Briefly (since it’s getting late) the solution is to find ways to make these areas more genuinely urban, along the lines mentioned by Jane Jacobs in “Death and Life . . .” It should be noted that this doesn’t automatically mean that parking and cars are the enemy — as Manhattan, for example, actually has plenty of both.
Benjamin Hemric
Friday morning, Feb. 25, 2011, 12:56 p.m.
1) Personally, I’m inclined to agree that IN GENERAL parking minimums stifle MARKET RATE development. And I think the insight that automobile usage in the U.S. is often the beneficiary of hidden subsidies is an important one. However, I think it would be a mistake to then assume that the development of additional parking is always bad for a particular “urban” (see more below) district, or for cities in general.
2) Although many areas of the Bronx may be high-density (relative to the rest of America) and “in theory” have “good” access to public transit (relative to the rest of America), most of them are, nevertheless, not genuinely urban. In other words, you can’t really enjoy living in these areas without having a car. There are long walks (along desolate streets) to bus stops and subway stops. The Bronx, in particular, is very hilly and getting to a subway / elevated can be very difficult. And subway / bus service can involve long waits. Plus most subway service is to Manhattan and not to other parts of the Bronx.
3) By the way, I’m not saying this is true of the neighborhood surrounding this particular development, as the development seems to be near Belmont, which is one of the more genuinely urban (and nicely so) areas of the Bronx. But, in general, you do not want to live in the Bronx (or much of Brooklyn or Queens) without a car.
4) Personally I have very fond memories of living in the South Bronx, but my father operated a parking lot across the street from our apartment, and we drove virtually everywhere, even into “the city” (except for occasional wonderful trips downtown via the subway).
5) The areas that I think of as being not genuinely urban, but “quasi-urban” instead, are called “gray areas” by Jane Jacob. They are, generally speaking, the areas that are one-time “subway suburbs” (or, in other cities, one-time trolley car suburbs) and they often have the problems of both cities (congestion) and suburbia (inaccessibility) without having the benefits of either.
6) One of the major reasons for the Bronx’s precipitous decline, in the opinion of a number of knowledgeable people, was the fact that a great many Bronx neighborhoods were built before WWII as as subway/trolley car suburbs and, after WWII, people “with choice” (to use a Jane Jacobs phrase) just didn’t want to live in such neighborhoods anymore. In the Bronx, you really couldn’t conveniently get anywhere without a car — but the neighborhoods were very densely built up when very few people owned cars — so parking (particularly off street parking) was very difficult to find.
7) What’s the “solution”? Briefly (since it’s getting late) the solution is to find ways to make these areas more genuinely urban, along the lines mentioned by Jane Jacobs in “Death and Life . . .” It should be noted that this doesn’t automatically mean that parking and cars are the enemy as Manhattan, for example, actually has plenty of both.
Benjamin Hemric
Friday morning, Feb. 25, 2011, 12:56 p.m.