Transportation
How Too Much Parking Strangled the Motor City
When supporting local businesses means driving everywhere.
By Rob Linn's count, 39.2 percent of the land in downtown Detroit has been paved over or built up for the purposes of parking. There are surface lots across the street from each other, parking garages around nearly every corner, more than 5,000 spaces alone within the half mile around Comerica Park.
To put that visually, this is downtown Detroit, its garages in orange and surface lots in red: