In most of the US, only single family detached houses are built (by law), which makes things spread out enough that people will want to drive. To address that, businesses are required to have a bunch of parking space. The end result of that is that, outside of a few places built before these rules took hold, living near amenities means living by parking lots and car traffic. The kind of street that "feels alive" is basically just precluded by rules that facilitate a car-first way of getting around.
Surely there could be small shops and restaurants dispersed at walking distances that don’t require parking space.
I get that it is low density, but not that low, and there is some money to spend in such areas. They would do good business.
> Surely there could be small shops and restaurants dispersed at walking distances that don’t require parking space.
I know it sounds insane, but no, in many places, this is not possible.
My city, Austin, eliminated mandatory minimum parking in 2023, and was at the time the largest US city to do so https://www.texastribune.org/2023/11/02/austin-minimum-parki...
I know of at least one business in my neighborhood that died due to these rules. They needed to expand to make the business work, but doing so would require that they buy even more land, in a fairly dense neighborhood, and turn it into parking.
Oh I understand that it is a regulatory constraint. What I don’t understand is why the regulations aren’t changed. Who is benefiting?
I don’t see why it wouldn’t be better for everyone, both in terms of business and living standards.
People who primarily drive don't think through the second order implications.
I have been in the car with someone more than once, looking for parking, where they re-invent the idea from first principles. "Ugh, we can't find a spot, why don't they require this place to provide enough parking?"
It was a tremendous political fight to get these sorts of reforms through. People get really upset when they perceive you as taking away their convenience.
My charitable interpretation, having talked to a lot of people about this stuff (and having lived in the rural US, NYC, and European cities), is that much of the US has been so car dependent for so long now that many people just lack a basic frame of reference for what daily life can look like without driving alone in a car to do everything outside the house.
Through the lens of a car being the only way that anyone you know has ever gotten around, parking is sort of a strict necessity. "How can you go anywhere if there's nowhere to park when you get there!?"
Meanwhile in the time since these laws came to be, we've roughly tripled the number of miles Americans are driving while the population has grown ~60-something percent, so there's more competition for street space than ever, people are spending tons of time in traffic/looking for parking, which creates a scarcity dynamic that freaks people out about any proposed changes.
The idea that getting some people to use other transportation modes could improve the daily experience for people who genuinely prefer to drive doesn't really click, either, because there's no frame of reference for getting around outside of a car, it's an abstract concept that people would actually do it. Even for people who've visited transit-rich/walkable places but never lived in one, there are often conceptual gaps—like the cadence of getting/carrying groceries, or the idea that bus/subway trips replace car trips 1:1, rather than the bus being a link between walkable areas.
> much of the US has been so car dependent for so long now that many people just lack a basic frame of reference for what daily life can look like without driving alone in a car to do everything outside the house.
Yes, I would agree with this as well.
There's definitely plenty of suburban development in the US that could support small neighborhood businesses without parking spaces, but in the overwhelming majority of the country, they're literally not allowed to exist without special permission.
In theory this ensures that any one business doesn't put undue strain on the local supply of parking spaces, but in reality I think it creates a sort of feedback loop that hollows out walkable downtowns/village centers, in favor of sprawl, where a car is required for 100% of trips (which in turn further increases demand for parking).
Even where it's allowed (which is more places than you think, look at zoning maps) and some places where it's not (variations exist) the places that do pop up usually die.
It takes serious dedication and time to turn a culture around, throwing in a few "desired third places" isn't going to cut it - at least not before the rents become too much to bear.
The whole parking thing is just so weird. Looking around my neighborhood, every house has a two car garage and enough room in the driveway to park either 2 or 4 more cars. But somehow street parking is at a premium.
Suburbia = New developments, not inherited through generations of family
New developments = You buy your land plot, you don't inherit it
Restaurant or small shop = Very small profits
Restaurant or small shop outside city centre = Even smaller profits
Very small profits = Not a good investment of time or money to build restaurant or small shop in suburbia
Compared to:
Inherit restaurant in European town = No rent or interest to pay
Inherit restaurant in European town = No cost to build restaurant
Inherit restaurant in European town = Mortgage the building to borrow money for reforms and investments.
> They would do good business.
Then why aren't you opening restaurants and small shops?