<story><title>Free Parking Comes at a Price</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/business/economy/15view.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>DanielBMarkham</author><text>I know I&apos;m being downvoted for political reasons, but this seems a clear-cut case where you can reason your way around here.&lt;p&gt;Please explain. Let&apos;s use my circumstances for an example.&lt;p&gt;I live an hour from any city. I do well enough financially, so parking taxes will not effect me one way or the other (neither would a gasoline tax). Within an mile of where I live, there are probably another 100 families. Most of them do not do so well. I live in a very rural and poor area. One family I know is a single mom and teenage daughter. While their housing is provided by family, each of them makes minimum wage and have to drive to the city to work. They barely keep one car running and the lights on at home.&lt;p&gt;Now I believe you are saying we should tax them for parking in the city. Then give everybody the money back from the tax. Perhaps at the end of the year when they file their taxes.&lt;p&gt;This would be devastating to these folks. Sure, you&apos;d cut down on car use, but at what cost? For every middle-income person who took a few less trips, how many low-income people did you just kick out of work?&lt;p&gt;Did I understand that correctly? And please, no &quot;but those folks are living the wrong way!&quot; comments. These people are living as best as they can. One social engineering event per conversation, please. The point is to defend, explain, or analyze the article in question. The essay seemed to me to be the kind of pontificating that looks good from the ivory tower living in the city, but has very limited real application to the rest of the country, aside from hurting people for a noble cause.</text></item><item><author>Retric</author><text>It would be far more efficient to implement the tax and give the money directly back to everyone.  At which point you would see people using that money for other things, which would let you reclaim parking spaces for other uses, and or build more based on supply and demand.&lt;p&gt;PS: I pay to park most places around me, and I take slightly fewer trips because of this.  The net effect of which is I spend less money on my car and buy more stuff when I do go out.</text></item><item><author>DanielBMarkham</author><text>I hate to rain on anybody&apos;s parade, but this is awful tripe. (I hope I couched that diplomatically enough)&lt;p&gt;Most of America is rural. Having an open space for your mode of travel has been de rigeur since the days people rode horses around. Most poor people, really poor people, can barely afford a car and the mandatory insurance now. Jacking up gas and parking taxes has terrible consequences to theses folks. No matter how precious the goal you are trying to accomplish.&lt;p&gt;Look, I&apos;d love a world without gasoline-powered cars, but when it&apos;s an hour to town, I&apos;m going to be going in &lt;i&gt;something&lt;/i&gt;. And that something is going to need to park somewhere.&lt;p&gt;I increasingly see a vast difference between urbanites and suburbanites/rural America. It&apos;s a shame they seem at cross-purposes so much. The United States is simply nowhere near as dense as Europe is, where things like this &lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;i&gt;might&lt;/i&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt; make more sense.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Just to be clear that I am directly addressing the author&apos;s point: The fact that the cost of land (and to society) for free parking has risen over the last few decades is not germane. Everything has risen in cost. Providing parking for others has always been a cost of having a residence or doing business in the city. I see nothing new in this article except a new look at those costs. The reason for them hasn&apos;t changed at all. Nor their justification.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pwim</author><text>In your example:&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  * there are about 100 families within a mile or so of you
  * they need to spend an hour or so to drive into the city
  * they can already barely afford a car and &quot;to keep the lights on&quot;
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
To me, this screams out for car-pooling, or some other shared transportation solution, as it would be better for the environment and cheaper for them.&lt;p&gt;Also, economies are complex systems.  If low income people can&apos;t afford to commute into the city, the jobs wouldn&apos;t disappear, as the work wouldn&apos;t disappear.  So someone closer who was previously unemployed might get the job.  Or in response to the shortage of workers, the wages of these jobs might be raised.</text></comment>
<story><title>Free Parking Comes at a Price</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/business/economy/15view.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>DanielBMarkham</author><text>I know I&apos;m being downvoted for political reasons, but this seems a clear-cut case where you can reason your way around here.&lt;p&gt;Please explain. Let&apos;s use my circumstances for an example.&lt;p&gt;I live an hour from any city. I do well enough financially, so parking taxes will not effect me one way or the other (neither would a gasoline tax). Within an mile of where I live, there are probably another 100 families. Most of them do not do so well. I live in a very rural and poor area. One family I know is a single mom and teenage daughter. While their housing is provided by family, each of them makes minimum wage and have to drive to the city to work. They barely keep one car running and the lights on at home.&lt;p&gt;Now I believe you are saying we should tax them for parking in the city. Then give everybody the money back from the tax. Perhaps at the end of the year when they file their taxes.&lt;p&gt;This would be devastating to these folks. Sure, you&apos;d cut down on car use, but at what cost? For every middle-income person who took a few less trips, how many low-income people did you just kick out of work?&lt;p&gt;Did I understand that correctly? And please, no &quot;but those folks are living the wrong way!&quot; comments. These people are living as best as they can. One social engineering event per conversation, please. The point is to defend, explain, or analyze the article in question. The essay seemed to me to be the kind of pontificating that looks good from the ivory tower living in the city, but has very limited real application to the rest of the country, aside from hurting people for a noble cause.</text></item><item><author>Retric</author><text>It would be far more efficient to implement the tax and give the money directly back to everyone.  At which point you would see people using that money for other things, which would let you reclaim parking spaces for other uses, and or build more based on supply and demand.&lt;p&gt;PS: I pay to park most places around me, and I take slightly fewer trips because of this.  The net effect of which is I spend less money on my car and buy more stuff when I do go out.</text></item><item><author>DanielBMarkham</author><text>I hate to rain on anybody&apos;s parade, but this is awful tripe. (I hope I couched that diplomatically enough)&lt;p&gt;Most of America is rural. Having an open space for your mode of travel has been de rigeur since the days people rode horses around. Most poor people, really poor people, can barely afford a car and the mandatory insurance now. Jacking up gas and parking taxes has terrible consequences to theses folks. No matter how precious the goal you are trying to accomplish.&lt;p&gt;Look, I&apos;d love a world without gasoline-powered cars, but when it&apos;s an hour to town, I&apos;m going to be going in &lt;i&gt;something&lt;/i&gt;. And that something is going to need to park somewhere.&lt;p&gt;I increasingly see a vast difference between urbanites and suburbanites/rural America. It&apos;s a shame they seem at cross-purposes so much. The United States is simply nowhere near as dense as Europe is, where things like this &lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;i&gt;might&lt;/i&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt; make more sense.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Just to be clear that I am directly addressing the author&apos;s point: The fact that the cost of land (and to society) for free parking has risen over the last few decades is not germane. Everything has risen in cost. Providing parking for others has always been a cost of having a residence or doing business in the city. I see nothing new in this article except a new look at those costs. The reason for them hasn&apos;t changed at all. Nor their justification.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sprout</author><text>What do you mean by&lt;p&gt;&amp;#62;One social engineering event per conversation, please.&lt;p&gt;Wasn&apos;t the central &apos;event&apos; of the article social engineering?&lt;p&gt;The central point of the article seemed to be the assertion that people who are that poor and should not be living so far from their place of employ would be better off if we did this. Yes, they would lose their jobs if they stayed where they are.&lt;p&gt;But the taxes on parking would discourage borderline-poor from owning cars in the city, which in turn would bring down housing costs in the city, making it possible for your neighbors to live more cheaply and healthfully by biking/busing to their now nearby job.&lt;p&gt;Yes, there would be hardship involved. But the alternative is waiting until fossil fuels rise to such a cost that they can&apos;t afford to drive to the city anyway. We&apos;ve then destroyed their chance of earning a livelihood by chasing their short-term comfort.</text></comment>