Shoup, Donald. The High Cost of Free Parking. Chicago: APA Planners Press, 2004 All Rights Reserved © Urban History Review / Revue d'histoire urbaine, 2006 Ce document est protégé par la loi sur le droit d’auteur. L’utilisation des services d’Érudit (y compris la reproduction) est assujettie à sa politique d’utilisation que vous pouvez consulter en ligne. https://apropos.erudit.org/fr/usagers/politique-dutilisation/ Cet article est diffusé et préservé par Érudit. Érudit est un consortium interuniversitaire sans but lucratif composé de l’Université de Montréal, l’Université Laval et l’Université du Québec à Montréal. Il a pour mission la promotion et la valorisation de la recherche. https://www.erudit.org/fr/ Document généré le 5 avr. 2021 20:59 Urban History Review Revue d'histoire urbaine Shoup, Donald. The High Cost of Free Parking. Chicago: APA Planners Press, 2004 John Zacharias Volume 34, numéro 2, spring 2006 URI : https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1016016ar DOI : https://doi.org/10.7202/1016016ar Aller au sommaire du numéro Éditeur(s) Urban History Review / Revue d'histoire urbaine ISSN 0703-0428 (imprimé) 1918-5138 (numérique) Découvrir la revue Citer ce compte rendu Zacharias, J. (2006). Compte rendu de [Shoup, Donald. The High Cost of Free Parking. Chicago: APA Planners Press, 2004]. Urban History Review / Revue d'histoire urbaine, 34(2), 60–61. https://doi.org/10.7202/1016016ar https://apropos.erudit.org/fr/usagers/politique-dutilisation/ https://www.erudit.org/fr/ https://www.erudit.org/fr/ https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/uhr/ https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1016016ar https://doi.org/10.7202/1016016ar https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/uhr/2006-v34-n2-uhr0608/ https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/uhr/ Book Reviews / Comptes rendus decade of research should be added to an already rich analy- sis. However, it would be interesting to learn how consumer advocates reconciled the rhetoric of envy and acquisitiveness to the economic deprivations of the 1930s. Hopefully, this ques- tion will be taken up in future studies of consumer culture. By combining the history of emotion with consumerism, Susan J. Matt establishes a unique conceptual framework for under- standing modern consumerism, perhaps pointing the way to comparative transnational studies of consumer behaviour. In conclusion, Keeping Up with the Joneses is an engaging and fascinating study that asks readers to reflect on the long and complex relationship between spending, personal desire, and the economic benefits of consumer envy. Now, are you sure that you need that new computer? Anne Clendinning Nipissing University Shoup, Donald. The High Cost of Free Parking. Chicago: APA Planners Press, 2004. This massive volume of 733 pages provides the evidence that parking requirements in planning legislation or as advocated in industry standards are very costly, unnecessary, and even counter-productive. First on the firing line is the Institute of Transportation Engineers because of their industry-standard guidelines and surveys of transportation generation from various land uses. Their guidelines fill a planning resource void even though, as Shoup exhaustively demonstrates, they are founded largely on minuscule samples of suburban environments. Central cities are absent from the surveys, as are innovative suburban examples. Next up are municipal planners copying each other's guidelines, ignoring international experience, and pretending there is science behind the requirements. Finally, Shoup points out that American municipalities are actually supporting free parking by insisting on over-supply. He even hints that such over-supply of free parking fuels profligate car use, making it dif- ficult to support public and non-motorized transportation. While evidence might be lacking for that particular claim, however logi- cal it might seem, the author spends many pages investigating the hidden financial costs of parking provision. Parking provi- sions are routinely rolled into the development budget because they are a fundamental requirement in the earliest stages of the project. As a consequence, their real cost is often under-esti- mated, if it is estimated at all. In any event, rarely do charges cover the costs of provision, so that cost recovery is achieved by hiding the costs in higher prices for everything else. The "eve- rything else" that Shoup looks at includes housing, downtown development, road infrastructure, goods, and services. The dem- onstration is supported by case studies with real financial data and hypothetical cases worked out in detail, for those who might be skeptical about the strongly stated claims of the author and the very high estimated costs associated with parking provisions. This volume undoubtedly represents many years of careful study and documentation. Its primary message that planners should not require parking provisions at all would be a fairly dreary one, if it were not lightened by some interesting, even amusing analogies. The steady doses of required parking in our cities are likened to routine medical administration of lead, or to bloodletting. The unclear methods for arriving at the standards routinely applied by cities and their uneven application across cities are likened to blind faith in myth. If it is largely true that parking requirements are not the fruit of analysis, it might be an exaggeration to suggest all parking demand estimations are equally flawed. Parking demand studies routinely appear in environmental impact assessments, for which clear procedures are available. Because the public environment as a whole is more complex than a project, clear approaches for estimating global parking levels in a city have not emerged, which would have provided a parking standard for an individual project. It is also argued by some urban planners advocating a normative approach that parking standards should be set to harmonize with broad environmental goals, with those goals defined at the scale of the city. Shoup does not explore these angles on plan- ning for parking, perhaps because they do not fit well with his theory that the most successful approach is to micro-manage control and financial benefit at the local level. This work is a good example of a movement to introduce more market mechanisms in urban development and downplay the governmental role in urban planning. The withdrawal of local government from public housing was an earlier spectacular example, and the involvement of local government as a facili- tator in privately initiated commercial development is another. Underlying this move toward self-regulation or private man- agement of urban development is the belief that public goods, managed by public bodies, tend to be mismanaged. Garrett Hardin, in his well-known 1968 article "The Tragedy of the Commons," outlined the problem of a heterogeneous society attempting to define common values in support of public goods. Indifference to the issues and the predominance of person- ally held values are offered as explanations for the failure of public management at the scale of the city. Shoup proposes that public parking be managed and controlled by local area societies who would decide on allocations of parking and cost, as well as re-allocation to public projects. By implication, the full costing of curb parking would raise its price and then do the same for off-street parking. Higher prices for parking result in shorter duration parking. In this way, he believes that effec- tive costing would tighten the supply. Private developers would elect to build less parking or pay in-lieu fees. If the demand is in fact stronger than was anticipated by the project developers, then that demand would spill over into street parking, raising its price. Although deliberately understated throughout the book, the implication is that market pricing would drive a substantial portion of trips into alternate modes of transportation. The book, in making a clear and supported statement about the effects of government-required parking provisions, points to an interesting debate about the role of local government. Making 60 Urban History Review /Revue d'histoire urbaine Vol. XXXIV, No. 2 (Spring 2006printemps) Book Reviews / Comptes rendus "foreigners" pay a differential fee for parking in another's neigh- bourhood also implies a level of control and definition for local areas that has not so far been a notable feature of our cities. Our city governments have mostly been broadly based regimes of control with weak local structures. The distribution of benefits from such a profitable resource as paid parking also raises interesting questions. The expected use of revenue to enhance the local public environment will produce pockets of substantial financial clout. Others might argue that the negative effects of local parking should be contextualized within the whole driving trip that also delivers negative effects to other areas, for which no income is available. The allocation of such revenue to local needs does, however, have the merit of actually working as a sys- tem. The question here is whether this is a good societal model. The book is full of useful material with which planners should familiarize themselves, in the event that our society does not completely abandon municipal control over parking. The capital cost estimation methods are clear and understandable, and should be a part of planning practice in any event. Those who would like to see a more balanced transportation system with a greater emphasis on non-motorized and public modes of transportation could use some of Professor Shoup's arguments. The book is a great parting shot in the timely debate on the role of city governments in supplying infrastructure for private transportation. John Zacharias Concordia University Hallowell, Gerald, ed. The Oxford Companion to Canadian History. Don Mills: Oxford University Press, 2004. Pp. 748. $79.95. The Oxford Companion to Canadian History represents the col- laborative work of more than five hundred scholars under the guidance of editor Gerald Hallowell, formerly of the University of Toronto Press. The Companion is in many respects an extensive, comprehensive read, and as a result it is destined to become a requisite text for scholars and students of Canadian history. Those of us interested in learning more about Canadian history will find The Companion to be an invaluable source for refer- ence information on a variety of subjects. Undergraduate students seeking background information or a general starting point for their work will find this text to be immeasurably useful. However, some necessary precau- tions must be given some consideration. As with any text that attempts to be comprehensive or encapsulate its subject in its entirety, The Companion invariably leaves some glaring omis- sions. This is not to suggest that it fails or is in anyway unsuc- cessful—on the contrary, its contributors and its editor should be applauded for their achievements in producing this fine work. However, some areas of Canadian history seem overem- phasized, while other topics and events are not given the treat- ment they deserve or in some cases fail to be mentioned at all. One of the more puzzling elements within the text is its quasi- interdisciplinary approach to history with regard to the arts and in particular music and dance. For example, there are entries on teacher and composer John Weizweig, contralto Portia White, and soprano Emma Albani, whereas there are no entries (or mention) of either Sir John Colbome or Sir Francis Bond Head, both of whom were lieutenant governors of Upper Canada during the tumultuous period of the Rebellions of 1837-38. In addition, the entry on the history of dance receives treatment of nearly one and a half pages. In comparison, Confederation merits just one half page. Leading Maritime politician Sir Samuel Leonard Tilley, a strong advocate for Confederation and the politician responsible for New Brunswick's decision to enter Confederation in 1867, receives just a brief mention. Other politicians instrumental in the deal for Confederation are also overlooked. This pattern continues throughout the text. The Companion also includes entries on a variety of topics such as academic freedom, lighthouses, art galleries, Timothy Findley's The Wars, and Franz Boas. While each of these entries is in some sense deserving, it is hard to argue for their inclusion when the Somalia Affair, Mitchell Sharpe and the Sharpe Principles, Fort George, Charles Dickens, the French and Indian Wars, and the Plains of Abraham are not represented as entries. The Companion provides us with extensive examples of explorers, scientists, and travellers, but is quite selective in this proc- ess. There is no mention of Thackeray, Henry David Thoreau, Isabella Bishop, Harriet Martineau, or John Goldie. Goldie's early nineteenth-century work on horticulture in Niagara cre- ated unprecedented levels of scientific interest in Canada and should have been included, given the text's emphasis on sci- ence and in particular scientific contributions and discoveries that were made in Canada and/or were made by Canadians. Besides science and the arts, other themes are also well represented in the text including education, urban history, and women's history. There are numerous entries pertaining to indi- vidual urban centres such as Montreal, Toronto, and St. John's. Perhaps the most interesting entries in this regard are those that highlight smaller urban centres such as Thunder Bay—which seems to have been included more so for its declining eco- nomic fortunes than as a leading urban centre. There are also useful entries on both the suburbs and urbanization. In this context, it could be pointed out that The Companion makes no mention of historiography or of urban history as a field or as subfield of social history. In fact there is no discussion or defini- tion of cultural history or social history in a Canadian context in the text either. This is not beyond the scope of the project, since Jan Noel's entry on femmes favorisées? does an excellent job of discussing and outlining the rise of scholarship on Canadian women in conjunction with the feminist movement. Perhaps the most disturbing element of this text is the inclu- sion of at least two references to the Montreal Massacre that 61 Urban History Review /Revue d'histoire urbaine Vol. XXXIV, No. 2 (Spring 2006printemps)