They can park their cars in their own driveways or land they own. Where's the problem?
Anyway, these people rely on their vehicles for transportation to work or school, and they pay for a parking spot. If a huge influx of drivers arrived without corresponding parking supply increases, I'm not sure these folks would be able to reliably park near their homes or get to work.
We can imagine solutions involving increasing the street permit price, etc., but fundamentally more drivers without more supply (road* and parking) is bad for current drivers.
*insert warning about Braess paradox and induced demand.
Seems like an example of an "economic calculation problem": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem
Parking on my street is very limited, so the spots are expensive. This way there's often at least one available. If there isn't, I can park around the corner in a privately-owned garage. Nobody says you can't build new apartments because they expect parking welfare at their neighbours' expense.
The problem is that most people feel it's perfectly reasonable to expect to claim a bit of land _for free_ for their car - if I just built a second house on a parking spot people wouldn't say "well the solution is to limit park-house-permits to local residents", they would demand I buy land on which to place my house.
You can't anticipate it, which is why you should never view street parking as a guaranteed feature of your home. People who can't afford homes with garages or driveways just need to be realistic about the fact that the parking situation on their street might change in the future.
Similarly, all homeowners, whether they have garages and driveways or not, need to be realistic about the fact that many things in their neighborhood might change, including density and traffic. That's just life. You can't fully control what happens on land you don't own.
What makes you think someone parking on your street is an outsider, rather than a neighbor, or a guest of a neighbor who might very well pay property taxes in the same city you do?
I also find it bizarre that some HN users (not you obviously since you can't downvote a direct reply) frequently downvote comments that provide a differing perspective from the anti-suburban anti-car view.
Certainly imposing on everyone else by forcing them to cover the costs of your personal needs is somewhat sub-optimal.
If you build housing with no parking attached to it, you won't be able to sell it for as much money. If people really care a lot about parking, that housing will have to be a lot cheaper to attract buyers. Perhaps so cheap that the developers won't make a profit on it and no one will build that kind of housing.
As elsewhere "what is the correct amount of parking for a given unit of housing" is basically impossible to solve at a citywide level and is a perfect example of this, posted elsewhere: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem
Most likely there are different kinds of people - some who care a lot about parking, and others who ride their bikes all the time or something. By providing diverse amounts of parking, people will sort out into different places that most suit their needs.
Maybe bathrooms should be optional? Some people may prefer to shit out the window or use the local YMCA to shower? Yeah that's a sanitation concern, but parking is a transit concern, both are major issues in cities.
There needs to be some forethought into how the new residents are going to get into and out of the city. Simply leaving it up to profit seeking businesses to sort out doesn't mean a functional solution will actually be found.
Build your city in a grid, and adapt. 150 years ago, that forethought would have created good infrastructure for horses. Now, that might not be so much of a concern. As much as possible, people should be free to choose. See also: The High Cost of Free Parking: http://amzn.to/2dRbceN
Every time you mandate parking spaces in new developments, you mandate the continuation of the car-centric city model that is simply unsustainable once the population grows past a certain point. Cars are effectively being subsidized by the government in most cities. That money should be spend on transit instead.
Serious rail projects take on the order of 30 years. I think it's much more likely that people would go somewhere else, rather than endure an entire adult life without acceptable transportation options so that maybe the grandchildren would have it better.
They sure as hell don't take 30 years when they care, though. How long was it to get 405 expanded with another lane? And for all that it's now even slower than before!
The other answer is that if you're asking me to weigh a place for someone to live against someone else's privileged ability to conveniently have everyone else pay for them to park a car, I'm going to favor living space every time. I think cities favor cars too strongly.
Unless you had some kind of legal guarantee to park in front of your own home, you never should have counted on being able to do so. If you feel bad when you can't do it anymore, it's because you had unrealistic expectations from the beginning. You just happened to be lucky that nobody else parked there.
If you want to guarantee that you will always be able to park in front of your house, buy a house with a garage or a driveway.
But if there's a driveway, then no one can park in front of it, and only the owner can use the driveway. A driveway, therefore, effectively replaces a public street parking spot with a private, personal spot.
From a parking utilization standpoint, it only makes sense to allow driveways and garages if it's very likely that more than one car will park there at times when on-street parking is full. (For example, in one place I rented, we had two cars parked in the side yard and one on the driveway, and did the car shuffle when needed.)
Here's the math. http://www.drivewaytips.com/layout.html says "A single car driveway width should be 10' wide, anything less than 10 feet will be too narrow to drive or park on comfortably. 12' is often used for added comfort and assuring to get out of your vehicle without stepping on the lawn or landscape." Others confirm that 10-12 feet is pretty standard.
In many cities, no parking is allowed within 5 feet of the end of the driveway. Seattle is one, see http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/parking/drivewaymarkin... , where you'll see the 5 feet isn't from the width of the driveway proper but also includes the opening it makes when it reaches a curb.
(Other cities have smaller limits, even down to 0 feet, while others have higher, even 10 feet. 5 feet seems pretty common)
Therefore, a driveway takes about 22' of space on the curb, or perhaps a bit more.
The standard parking space for parallel parking is 24' long for standard or 21' for compact: http://www.danbury-ct.gov/filestorage/21015/21087/21123/2301... .
Effectively, each driveway takes away a public parking spot.
There's also an occupancy issue. Consider a worst-case scenario where someone lives near a park-and-ride train station, but needs to drive to work. In the morning there is a lack of parking spaces, because of people parking to commute into the city. In the evening, there's no problem to find parking. If the resident had no driveway then parking, for the most part, wouldn't be a problem because plenty of spaces are free. For the others, it means one extra spot is available.
Now, put the driveway in and the homeowner has a easier time (eg, call in sick, go to the doctor, and sometimes there's no nearby parking spot for the return), while every single day someone else has a harder time to find parking.
See that 'passo carrabile' sign? https://goo.gl/maps/yjGQ5i1wg222
That means you can't park there, but it also means you have to pay something to obtain the sign. No sign, no enforcement.
My block in Denver is weird in that the alley only goes half way down it. So half of the block has no driveways since they have an alley and the other half has driveways. The width is like everyone has driveways. It's kind of like driving down the barrel of a gun.
That's not how most humans think - and if logic disagrees with people's moral intuitions, so much the worse for logic.
It's not just logic -- it's the law. The street is public property. Even in areas with parking permits, anyone with a permit can park on any part of the street, and you aren't guaranteed a spot in front of your own house.
Welcome to Amsterdam. Living in a dense city with very constrained parking is nice, but it's unfit for dual-car households. You need to use the bike and public transport. Or move to a suburb.