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Comment by nadermx | Hacker News Reader

The US has some very interesting requirements when building. In some cities, regardless of destiny, new buildings are required to have 1.x parking spots per unit or something of the sort as well. Which basically assures all buildings have to be designed for car centric life.

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It's the same for many European cities and towns. Many cities started to reduce it down to 0.5 parking spaces per flat or less, because many of those parking spaces tend to be empty in bigger cities. And just increase prices for housing.

I was just visiting a European friend for a couple weeks. They have a car but parking was a sufficient drama that they took the Uber equivalent within the city most of the time. Busses but minimal metro.

I honestly don't see the drama in most European cities, it's not like in NYC. Street parking is very limited in bigger cities, so you might need to park in expensive parking garages. Or use other methods of travel.

Only in areas with a lot of old houses (built before cars were a thing) there might be a lack of garages.

Owning/driving a car is generally very expensive in many European countries. Not like in the US where wages are rather high, but cars and gas extremely cheap, because there is no substantial tax on them.

Edit: this might not apply to southern Europe. In some southern European cities it's impossible to go by car. That's why everyone drives a scooter.

This was southern Europe. Looked like mostly street/sidewalk parking as far as I could tell. Certainly lots of cars--not a lot of scooters.

The requirement is because if you don't mandate a minimum amount of parking, developers won't create it. Then the neighbors of your fancy new building can no longer find parking near their own home because the new building tenants take it. So they justifiably get angry and start voting in politicians that will enforce minimum capacity for new development.

Your conclusion seems wrong in pratice. Seems in fact quite the opposite happens, more affordable housing, etc. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/...

So the neighbors who where there first also don't have any parking in their buildings? Only the new residents should be required to park thier cars off street? I fail to see how that is justifiable.

We’ve really done a number to cater to cars and the auto industry in the United States. Some More News does a great job on outlining the history of cars, roads, and what can be done to make things better - https://youtu.be/sayw3TOhykg

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