Why Cities Should be Working with Parking Apps

"Cities owe it to their citizens to try and work with these platforms and focus on solving the real issue: finding parking in an ever more crowded city"

I disagree. That's only one aspect of the issue. Another is the surplus of free parking, as discussed in the 2005 "The High Cost of Free Parking", and brought up here in HN many times. Look elsewhere for the details.

If parking prices are set appropriately, then there should nearly always be available parking, and the city gets all of the profit, instead of sharing it or giving it to third parties. A few cities have started this. See http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/13019/prices-affect... and http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2014/06/does-san-franciscos... for preliminary numbers.

In that solution, there is no need to work with this platforms, as the available third party market will be small.

If a city works with these platforms then the correct market interpretation is that they are using taxpayer owned property - the city streets - to channel funds into private hands, possibly in opposition to the stated reasons for certain zoning requirements. I wonder if it may even mean the city is open to zoning challenges based on a conflict of interest.