Feedback and the use of land for parking

Abstract

Land-use patterns are often the result of feedback effects in which one agent's decision both influences and is influenced by urban form. This paper argues that such feedback—of a positive or negative kind—could plausibly arise in the provision of off-street parking. A stylized model is used to illustrate feedback in the case of bundled parking, to note how such feedback may change a neighborhood in the long run and to analyze several policies. A theme is that feedback opens the door to surprising effects that are hard to predict from the status quo.