No More Winter 'Dibs' on Parking Spots

This winter, Boston's South End neighborhood embarks on a bold experiment in social engineering. With the mayor's blessing, The Boston Globe reports, the neighborhood has banned the popular practice of "dibs." What happens next could undermine Boston's reputation for extreme social grace under foul-weather pressure.

Kidding, of course. Boston in winter is a place that would make Cormac McCarthy blush. Cars parked in saved spaces after a blizzard in February 2013 saw their tires slashed by the angry residents who had initially shoveled the spaces out—and that's not even an outlier. They had broken the code of winter-parking dibs: Shoveling out a parking space entitles the shoveler to that specific space, according to popular convention. The claim is signaled by putting something in the space as a placeholder. (A chair, a bin, anything will do.)