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9 - Where Should We Park?

from Part I - Our World

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 October 2022

Daniel Scott Souleles
Affiliation:
Copenhagen Business School
Johan Gersel
Affiliation:
Copenhagen Business School
Morten Sørensen Thaning
Affiliation:
Copenhagen Business School
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Summary

This chapter compares the ways that two similarly sized cities, Chicago and Amsterdam, have chosen to govern their streets. Chicago sold a seventy-five-year concession to manage street parking to a consortium of private investors, whereas Amsterdam’s government maintains the ability to directly govern its streets. In turn, Chicago is an illustration of how privatization of a common good according to money-lending logics, far from allowing for flexibility and efficient governance, completely prevents a city from changing with the times. Chicago has lost control over its own streets and can no longer decide what their best use is without paying an extortionate price. Any governing of a shared communal space that has a broader concern than generating profit for a private corporation is here effectively undermined by allowing marketized parking. For the purposes of this book, the Chicago/Amsterdam comparison illustrates the limitations of using privatized business actors to efficiently govern shared city space. It also serves as a counterexample to the neoliberal dogma that government should abstain from planning, because their attempts at doing so cannot outperform the market.

Type
Chapter
Information
People before Markets
An Alternative Casebook
, pp. 171 - 183
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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References

Bliss, Laura. 2019. “Amsterdam’s amazing disappearing parking spaces.” Bloomberg CityLab, June 5, 2019. Accessed December 3, 2019. www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/06/amsterdam-parking-spots-removal-cars-bikes-parks-playground/591067.Google Scholar
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Grabar, Henry. 2018. “New York City street parking is preposterously corrupt.” Slate, May 3, 2018. Accessed December 3, 2019. https://slate.com/business/2018/05/new-york-citys-corrupt-street-parking.html.Google Scholar
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Kling, Samuel. 2019. “That parking meter deal is still haunting Chicago.” Chicago Tribune, April 5, 2019: 15.Google Scholar
O’Sullivan, Feargus. 2019. “Amsterdam plans to systematically strip its center of parking spaces in the coming years, making way for bike lanes, sidewalks, and more trees.” Bloomberg CityLab, March 29, 2019. Accessed 13 August 2020. www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/03/amsterdam-cars-parking-spaces-bike-lanes-trees-green-left/586108.Google Scholar
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Wisniewski, Mary. 2019. “Faster bus service: CTA says bus/bike lanes could be solution.” Chicago Tribune, April 11, 2019: 4.Google Scholar

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