Henry Grabar
Appearances
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
Well, I know there are a lot of communities that, for example, at Christmas, they'll put little hoods over the parking meters and let you park for free. So obviously that's to encourage more business, which would what I infer from that is by having parking meters, you discourage business.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
Yeah, unfortunately, I think a lot of those communities have it backwards. The problem with hooding the parking meters is that let's say I want to run an errand downtown. I'll drive there and I will leave my car there all day, right? And I'll go around and do whatever. In fact, you know who's going to leave their car there all day is the people who work in the stores.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
They're the people who get their first thing in the morning. They may usually pay for parking in a garage or park further away, but when the meters are hooded, they're going to park right in front of the shop, and when you show up at 2 p.m. to do your Christmas shopping, you will find that there is no place to park, and you'll get mad, and you might even drive to the suburbs and shop at the mall.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
So I think free parking downtown is pretty much a losing proposition for business owners if there's not enough parking. Sure, if you're in some tiny country town where there's, you know, Only 100 people live there. Yeah, you don't need to make anybody pay for parking. But in a congested city district, it's the only way to make sure that there are spaces available.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
And I think most people, they don't like paying for parking. But when push comes to shove, they prefer paying for parking to looking for a space for 20 minutes and then giving up and driving away.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
Is parking a good business to be in?
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
I would say it's a simple business to be in. I mean, for decades, parking was the largest all-cash business in the United States. What? Yeah, yeah, because everybody – the whole parking industry was just collecting cash in boxes nationwide at sports stadiums, downtowns, airports, everywhere. And this created obviously – this made it a very lucrative business to be in, especially –
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
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Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
if you weren't properly reporting your income to the IRS.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
So you said that if we build more parking, then more cars show up to take it. And so that doesn't work. And then if you charge a lot for parking, people really hate that. So what's the solution where everybody's happy?
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
Well, I think one solution is the one that we did in the United States, which is you build so much parking that there's not really anything left to drive to. And that's kind of what happened in a lot of American downtowns. They were obsessed with this idea that to compete with the suburbs, they needed to provide as much free and ample parking as possible.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
And it turns out that if your number one priority is free parking, downtown is never going to beat a mall in the suburbs. It's just never going to compete. And so one solution we ended up with is – you build so much parking that it's not hard to find a spot, but also there's not much, there's not that much to do because, because your town is mostly parking.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
The other option, which I think is, is coming into fashion now is to try and find ways to manage demand for parking. So that could take the form of parking meters, trying to, you know, discourage people from, from maybe parking all day on main street or encouraging them to, to carpool instead of the whole family, everyone driving down in their own car.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
And the other element, I think, is to help people try not to drive so much if they want to, right? Like, obviously, many people depend on their cars and need their cars to go about their business in America. It's a vast and sprawling country. I recognize that.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
Lots of people actually live within a pretty close distance of the errands they do every day, whether it's taking the kids to school or going to work or going to the coffee shop or going to the grocery store. The average trip in this country is under three miles. So that's a distance that could be done on a foot or electric bicycle or on a golf cart or something like that. or on a bus.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
And unfortunately, those modes of travel have become really challenging. And one of the reasons I think that it's so hard to not drive everywhere is in fact, precisely because of parking. I mean, you see this trade-off in major cities where cities will not build protected bike lanes for people to get safely from destination to destination on a bicycle because they are afraid of taking away
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
a lane of parking that's used for parked cars.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
But if you take away parking for buses or whatever, bike lanes, you add to the traffic because now people are having to keep driving to find a place somewhere else to park their car, which clogs the roads, which upsets drivers, which upsets bicyclists. So you're really creating more trouble.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
That was the thinking for most of the 20th century in most US cities. And I get it. It's really intuitive. This idea that if you take away parking and most traffic is people looking for parking, then you are going to create more traffic, make people mad. They're going to leave and go to the suburbs.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
But I think what the parking reformers are arguing for is not so much let's get rid of all the parking, but let's manage it. Let's price the busiest parking. Let's get rid of some parking spots where it makes it possible to create a way for people to get around another way in a bus, on a bike, etc.,
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
And let's, for example, direct people away from the main street right in front of the shops and into the public garage a few blocks away if they're parking for more than three or four hours. Like those are the kinds of policies that can both, I think, reduce demand for parking, but also ultimately for people who are looking for parking, make it easier for them to park.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
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Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
There are people, again, I kind of put myself in this category, who just hate to pay for parking. It's kind of like ATM fees or high gas prices. It isn't that it's necessarily a lot of money. It's the principle of the thing.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
Like, I guess that's that kind of entitlement that, you know, it's a public street and you should be able to park on it and, you know, not charge me for it and give me a ticket when my meter runs out and now I've got to pay 50 bucks and whatever. There's something about it that just really rubs me in, and I think a lot of people the wrong way.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
Why do you feel that way about parking and not about, say, any other good or service you consume?
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
I didn't say I have it. I have the same thing about ATM fees and high gas prices. So it isn't just parking. It's there's something about it, though, that, you know, that public street is just as much mine as anybody else's. And but I even don't like parking. valet parking. I mean, I don't, I just think it's such a rip off because I can park my own car. Just give me a spot. I'll be fine.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
I don't need you.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
Yeah, I get it. I, you know, I don't like paying for parking either. Nobody, to be sure, nobody likes paying for parking. I think the question is not, do we want to pay for parking? The question is, do we want to accept the trade-offs that come with free parking everywhere all the time?
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
And in the case of basically the last century of American planning, we've learned that free parking for everyone all the time is a recipe for traffic congestion, high housing costs, ugly architecture, dangerous streets, and ultimately a place that's less accessible, not more accessible.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
Well, it would seem that there's going to have to be, for any of this to work, some sort of collective mind shift about this whole thing. Because I think people who drive cars believe that if they drive a car somewhere, they're entitled to a place to put it. Even if they have to pay for it, there should be a place to put it. Otherwise, they're not going to drive there.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
And it's an entitlement almost. And to change that mindset seems like it's going to be hard.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
I think one thing to drive home about parking is that it feels like it costs nothing because it's free for you most of the time. But building parking is actually really, really expensive. Like just building a parking lot can cost $5,000, $10,000 a space. And building a parking garage can cost $50,000 a space. And if it's underground, it can be up to $100,000 a space.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
And so when we ask for more parking, we are folding in hidden and massive costs, right? that aren't paid for by drivers when they show up at the parking garage, but they're paid for by everybody else. If you rent an apartment in a building with a 50 space parking garage, the cost of building that garage is folded into your rent, whether you drive or not.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
And I don't think that's fair. Well, after listening to you, I don't think I'm going to look at parking quite the same way again. I've been talking to Henry Gravar. He is a staff writer at Slate, and the name of his book is Paved Paradise, How Parking Explains the World. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Appreciate it. Thanks, Henry. All right. Thanks a lot. Take care.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
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Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
You have no doubt heard of microbes. Tiny little things. But what are they exactly? What do they do? Where do they come from? And how do they affect you? Well, it's actually a fascinating topic, and here to explain it is Jake Robinson. Jake is a microbial ecologist and author of the book Invisible Friends, How Microbes Shape Our Lives and the World Around Us. Hi, Jake.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
Welcome to Something You Should Know. Hi, Mike. Thank you very much. So what are microbes?
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
What is it about them that fascinates you? And why is it important to shine a light on this?
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
Isn't that interesting that the general sense is that microbes, little germy things are bad for you when you say that 99% of them are not. So I wonder how they got that reputation.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
So I have all these microbes, probably millions, billions of microbes in my body, yes? Mm-hmm, yep.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
emitting from our body but we're also ingesting and we're also inhaling millions of microscopic organisms every single day and so again it's this kind of two-way exchange between our bodies and our environments and these microbes trillions you say that i have in my body do they all play a role or is this just very benign they're passing through or why are they there
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
And do we all have basically the same microbes in our body? I mean, what are the chances that the microbes in my body are more or less the same as the ones in your body? Or are they really different?
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
Hi, welcome to Something You Should Know. I've been a big coffee drinker most of my life. I'm one of those people that really needs to have a cup of coffee in the morning. Maybe you are too. And it's always been thought, in fact, there used to be a marketing campaign. Coffee was the think drink, that it was supposed to help you concentrate and think better.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
And if you were to, you know, crack each of us open and take a look, like is one better than the other or they're just different?
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
What about the supplements, the probiotic supplements? Because they can be quite expensive. Are they worth it?
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
How do these microbes in our bodies affect things like our thinking, our mood, our cognitive function, that kind of thing?
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
Well, maybe drinking coffee does that, but smelling coffee has an effect as well. If you take the time to smell your coffee before you drink it, there's some science that says it can have a powerful effect on your brain. Specifically, inhaling the fragrance of coffee can enhance working memory and stimulate alertness.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
So when we talk about microbes in the human body, it seems like the conversation is always about the gut, but aren't there microbes everywhere?
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
So you said we have trillions of these microbes in us and on us, yes?
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
And if and when they die, where do they go?
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
So I've heard, for example, that you're supposed to let your kids play in the dirt, that the microbes in soil and that the microbes in the environment, that we don't want to be too clean, that we want to interact with these microbes. Can you talk about that?
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
So drinking coffee may help you stay alert and be more productive, but drinking and smelling coffee can be even better. And that is something you should know. If you drive a car, there is one big part of that whole experience that you don't think about a lot, except when you have to, and that is parking. Because no matter how convenient it is to have a car...
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
So I assume if we all humans have these microbes all over us and in us, every other living thing must too that we see.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
You know, as I was looking through your book, I landed on something that I'm not sure exactly how this fits into this discussion, but I'd never even heard of this, about nutrient density and how it's diminishing since over the last several decades? Can you explain what that is and some examples and then how it fits into this discussion?
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
I'd never heard of that. And according to you, it says that you would have to eat four carrots today to get the same amount of magnesium from one carrot in 1940.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
you have to have a place to put it everywhere you go. Parking can be a hassle, it can be expensive, and in some places virtually impossible to find. Then, of course, there is paid parking and parking meters, which can result in expensive parking tickets... If you don't feed the meter. See, parking really is a big deal. In fact, did you know that in many U.S.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
So when people take an antibiotic to help kill whatever bad thing is causing them to be sick, an antibiotic will kill lots of things, I assume lots of microbes within the body. So can you talk about that?
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
I've been talking to Jake Robinson. He is a microbial ecologist, and the name of his book is Invisible Friends, How Microbes Shape Our Lives and the World Around Us. And there is a link to that book in the show notes. Appreciate it, Jake. Thanks for taking the time. Cheers, Mike. Thanks for having me on. A lot of people who think they have a food allergy actually have a food intolerance.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
If you suddenly, for example, develop a reaction to a certain food or beverage, you're probably intolerant, not allergic. Allergies generally start in childhood and they might even disappear over time. Allergies involve the immune system and are generally more serious. Food intolerances tend to increase with age and are more of a digestive matter and usually just a nuisance.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
The most common food intolerances are lactose, gluten, and MSG. A lot of people develop intolerances for sulfites, too. That's the compound found in beer, wine, and champagne and is sometimes added to dried fruit or canned foods as a preservative. If any of those things make you itchy, congested, or swollen, you're intolerant, but not allergic. And that is something you should know.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
cities, parking is the number one land use? And it has literally shaped the landscape in many parts of the world. Here to explain how and why you should care is Henry Grabar. Henry is a staff writer at Slate and author of the book, Paved Paradise, How Parking Explains the World. Hey Henry, welcome to Something You Should Know. Pleasure to be here.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
This would be a good time. In fact, there would be no better time for you to leave a rating and review of this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
So when I think about the subject of parking, it doesn't feel like that's much of a subject, except that parking is something you complain about. There's never enough of it. You can't find a spot when you need it. So why dive into this topic? Why is this so interesting?
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
Today on Something You Should Know, if you drink coffee in the morning, you might want to take a whiff of it too. Then, parking your car. Parking has changed the way we live and taken up a lot of our space.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
I think people rarely think about it and sometimes say to me, well, that sounds like sort of a boring thing to write a book about. But then once you get them on the subject and they start talking about parking, you realize that everybody is full of opinions about parking and actually everybody spends a lot of time thinking about it, the realization that I had.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
was that I realized I was surrounded by parking. I mean, once you start to see it as the number one land use in many American cities, you can't stop seeing it. And it pops out everywhere. And once you begin to understand its cost and its effect on landscape and the architecture and our travel patterns and our housing costs, you never look at it the same way again.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
So when you say that parking is the number one land use in many cities, explain what you mean, because that's, that's hard to imagine.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
There is more space for parking each car in this country than there is for housing each person. I think you can, you can sometimes see this when you, if you look at a satellite image of downtown Kansas city or Columbus, Ohio, or little rock, um, The parking lots really stand out. It is the dominant feature of the landscape.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
And in fact, we actually require this by law that many buildings consist more than half of the property. has to be devoted to parking, which is to say, for your square footage, let's say you run a restaurant, for every 100 square feet of restaurant, you have to provide one parking space. Well, a parking space is bigger than 100 square feet.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
So you're essentially legislating that every restaurant have more space for parking than space for restaurant.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
And those kind of rules apply where? Because obviously you couldn't make that the rule in New York or Chicago because there's no room. You couldn't open a restaurant because there's no room for those parking spots.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
Well, those are the rules almost everywhere. Now, places like New York and Chicago have decided that they are sufficiently dense that it doesn't make sense to require somebody opening a new restaurant to provide two dozen parking spaces. But that remains the law in most American cities and suburbs.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
You know, we could pave a small state with the amount of land we have dedicated for parking. There are between four and nine parking spaces per vehicle in this country. There is more space for parking each car than there is for housing each person.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
And so when you think about the American architectural vernacular, you're driving down a six-lane road. You've got these sort of –
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
uh stores and restaurants and retail set behind parking lots on on each side of the road that style of architecture is really the architecture of parking requirements because if you're required to build that much parking that's just what the architecture ends up looking like it's like the built american form follows from the requirement of providing parking and that's how we get what the country looks like today
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
Yeah, with a lot of strip malls where the front of it is, it's like an L shape and the front of it is all parking. Exactly. And it's really ugly.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
Yeah, you know, I find it personally not my favorite type of architecture. And what's funny is I think a lot of Americans share this sense that we don't build things the way we used to, that there's this kind of sense that like both for residential and commercial architecture, that there was this golden era in American history where we built things we liked and we stopped doing that.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
And I would suggest to you that one of the main reasons we stopped doing that was that we imposed the obligation to provide parking. And providing parking just creates unattractive buildings. It creates buildings that are separated from the street by a huge parking lot. It makes it basically impossible
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
to renovate any historic structures because you have to provide a certain number of parking spaces. So you basically have to demolish the building next door. And if you've looked at like a new office building or condo tower in an American downtown, look at the bottom like six to eight floors. I almost guarantee you they are used for parking.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
And in fact, there are some buildings that like by the number of floors are more than half parking. So what you're really building is a parking garage with a little bit of apartment or a little bit of office on top.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
So I find it surprising that parking is the number one land use in many communities. What else about parking would I find surprising?
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
Well, I think one of the ones that always grabs me right away is that there are between four and nine parking spaces per vehicle in this country. So that means that the national parking stock is only 25% full at its fullest moment. And of course, some of those cars are in motion.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
Also, the important difference between a food allergy and a food intolerance. And microbes, those little invisible organisms like germs and bacteria, they get a bad rap.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
So when you think about how full parking is, how hard it is to find a parking spot, there is just an unbelievable quantity of parking in this country.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
And so I think that that's one of the things that grabs people right away is, you know, we could pave a small state with the amount of land we have dedicated for parking, which suggests that perhaps building more parking is not the solution to making it easier to find a parking spot.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
Wait a minute. How can that be? Because that is not people's experience frequently that there's all this abundant parking. It's often very difficult to find a parking spot. So reconcile that.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
Yeah, it's this crazy paradox, right? So much land for parking, and yet when I need a parking spot, it's so hard to find one. I think there's three reasons that this happens. The first one is that parking is not shared, right? So we talked about how every apartment building, every office, every courthouse, every movie theater has to provide their own parking spaces. Well, in most cities by law,
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
The office and the condo can't double up and share a garage, and they definitely can't share that garage with the people who are going to the sub shop next door. And what that means is that when you arrive in a place that appears to have a lot of parking, you quickly realize that each lot is actually proprietary and belongs to a certain business, a certain apartment, et cetera.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
So it looks like a lot of parking, but – When you need one, it's not necessarily available. The second big part of that is that the parking is free. And because the best street parking in most places is free, it becomes really hard to get a spot there. And if you just charge even a little bit for that really good parking, people who would otherwise get there early in the morning and park all day,
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
We'll park a little further away. And then when you show up at lunch or to run an errand or to do a delivery, there'll be a parking space available to you. I mean, you might have to pay a couple quarters for it, but that's better than driving around the block 100 times.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
Is there any sense or any statistic about how much the typical car owner pays to park their car?
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
Most people park for free most of the time. I would say upwards of 90% of the time people park for free. And when you – in fact, parking, free parking is basically the number one determinant of Of car ownership and car use.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
So it's one of the great ironies about parking is that one of the reasons we built so much parking and we required people to build so much parking was that we were very concerned about traffic. Like traffic was a total nightmare in American cities in the 1940s and 50s. And the reason for this, people thought, was that there wasn't enough parking. So they built all this free parking.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
And one of the great ironies is that all that free parking encouraged many, many more people to buy cars and drive them everywhere. And as the urban environment degraded with more and more parking lots taking the place of buildings, it became more and more challenging to, say, walk or ride a bike or take transit to a new destination. And so in this way, parking is like a narcotic, right?
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
Like the more you have of it,
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
Well, you know, when I saw your book and I started thinking about this, what I find interesting is I don't take Ubers or Lyft very often, but I would say at least half of the time that I do, it's not because I don't want to drive. It's because I don't want to park.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
I believe it. I think that one of the other statistics that grabbed me when I first heard it is that studies estimate that a third of downtown traffic is people looking for a place to park. So that's you, right? That's you driving around in circles looking for a place to park. I agree. It's maddening, and it encourages people to stop driving.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
And that just goes to show that if you want to control traffic, if you want to control emissions cut down on car crashes, on – pollutants that drift into the windows of people's apartments. Parking is the lever. And I think that's what you're experiencing there, is that the challenge of parking motivates you to find another way to get around.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
I'm speaking with Henry Grabar, and the name of his book is Paved Paradise, How Parking Explains the World.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
We talk a lot about health on Something You Should Know, and I guess it motivates me. I mean, I'm not a nut about it, but I try to take care of my health. I want to preserve my mobility and strength as I get older. And I recently started taking this supplement. Maybe you've heard about it. It's called MitoPure.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
So, Henry, does it work when communities, city governments institute paid parking to replace free parking to discourage people from parking? Does that work?
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
In most cases, it does, and here's why. Paid parking works best, these city planners say, when it's not designed to raise money. The point of paid parking should be to organize the way people park and how long they park for. So you push the people who are parking all day into the spots a little further away, and the people who are parking for a shorter amount of time can park closer.
Something You Should Know
Why Parking is Such a Problem & How Microbes Influence Our Lives - SYSK Choice
Unfortunately, in the last 70 years, many governments have thought of parking meters simply as a way to raise money for motorists. And I think that is not the purpose of parking meters. The purpose of parking meters is to organize parking demand. It's the only way we have because otherwise it's just a total free for all.