Poor people pay for parking even when they can’t afford a car

Free parking makes it cheaper to own a car. But, as UCLA economist Donald Shoup has long argued, it makes everything else more expensive. Parking at the supermarket is embedded in the cost of groceries. Parking attached to an apartment building is built into the price of rent.

And because cities typically require developers to build a minimum amount of parking — say, one spot per bedroom in each housing unit, or two per thousand square feet of commercial space — you may pay for the cost of parking even if you never drive a car.