Big Yellow Taxi.

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A brilliant rant by Jeff Siegler, which should be read by every single person — stakeholder or otherwise — who claims to care about the future of downtown New Albany.

Isn’t this what an organization like Develop New Albany is supposed to be doing with its time? Or, conversely, advocating for meaningful measure like THIS?

Click through to read all of it … and learn something today.

THE REAL PARKING PROBLEM

For anyone that has worked in economic development, community development and especially, downtown revitalization, you have become all too familiar with the parking problem trope. It might be the single biggest frustration in the field, as no matter how much evidence there is to refute this notion, people simply don’t care. Let me sum up the thinking; people believe their downtown cannot be successful unless considerably more parking spaces are added. This sort of thinking is expensive, counterproductive and ignores the real problems the community might be dealing with. Now instead of writing 2000 words on the perceived problem, I am just going to list all the reasons why the perceived parking problem is just a bunch of bullshit and hopefully save you all countless hours of arguing about it.

  • Parking is not an attraction. 
  • Parking is a utility. 
  • Parking does not drive business. 
  • People will find a place to park. 
  • Parking ruins places.
  • People need less parking. 
  • Abundant parking sucks. 

We have spent decades complaining about this, I still go into community meetings and have to argue about this. I am not doing it anymore. Nor should anyone in this field have to. If you are going to be willfully ignorant of the facts, we are not obligated to convince you of the truth.

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