The city council in Austin, Texas recently proposed something that could seem like political Kryptonite: getting rid of parking minimums.
Those are the rules that dictate how much off-street parking developers must provide — as in, a certain number of spaces for every apartment and business.
Around the country, cities are throwing out their own parking requirements – hoping to end up with less parking, more affordable housing, better transit, and walkable neighborhoods.
Cheaper housing doesn’t help if you can’t get a job because you can’t afford to have a car because you can’t park it. Of course the opposite is also true but our society is already biased toward car ownership