Revitalization and Parking

I was reminded about this while looking through information on Dayton's (Ohio) revitalization efforts: One fallacy that many cities fall into when planning revitalization efforts is dealing with parking by using the wrong strategy.

Many cities undertake their revitalization efforts in a historic, central business district. While this in itself isn't wrong, many of these central business districts were formerly where people came to shop. The issue arises when the city pushing the revitalization forgets to change the usage mix, or shifts the usage rather than working toward a truly mixed-use area. The only thing I can figure is that the city feels they need to somehow attract people to the area on the short term. The solution, to them, must be retail, or restaurants, or night clubs, or some combination thereof.

As a result, these revitalized areas have a high demand for parking. Whether it's parking garages, lots, or street parking, a high number of spaces must be provided.

However, if all that's planned for is retail, restaurants, and night clubs, these retailers and entertainment options have to be really good, or the revitalization will fizzle out in favor of the latest mall or other alternative. The result will be plenty of parking, and no one to use it. Worse yet, the restauranteurs and shop owners will go out of business, losing all the money they put into their shops.

A better solution is to promote a mixed-use redevelopment. Here you're not as reliant on outside shoppers - rather, the retail is better-suited to residents who live there. How does this help for parking? In a mixed-use area, residents have the option of walking to a retailer or restaurant. Walking means no car. No car means no parking spot. Fewer parking spots means more space for parks, community space, or more mixed-use development, all of which lead to even more walking traffic.

The other piece to this puzzle is the planning process. Many times, city planners, who are used to suburban development, rush into revitalization using the same rules. Instead, it is important that planners look to more urbanized areas when setting parking ratios and requirements.