Urban planning guru Shoup passes away

Donald Shoup, the influential professor emeritus of urban planning in the Department of Urban Planning at UCLA, has passed away aged 86 after a short illness. His research focused on parking policy and its impact on urban planning, sustainability, and economic development.

Shoup argued that traditional parking requirements – such  as mandatory minimum parking spaces for new developments – led to urban sprawl, congestion, and higher housing costs.

In his 2005 book, The High Cost of Free Parking, Shoup recommended that cities should charge fair market prices for on-street parking, spend the revenue to benefit the metered areas, and remove off-street parking requirements. 

In his 2018 edited book, Parking and the City, he and 45 other academic and practicing planners examined the results in cities that have adopted this approach. The successful outcomes show that parking reforms can improve cities, the economy, and the environment, said Shoup.

Colin Black, Director at Mayer Brown, offered this tribute:

During the noughties I spent a lot of time in the USA and Canada providing sustainable transport planning advisory and was often rolled out as a keynote speaker to demonstrate “what those crazy Europeans were up to”. 

At the time Donald Shoup was one of the few Americans promoting a more progressive and alternative approach to car-dominant planning. His research spoke to north Americans in a way that better appreciated the cultural differences. His work was a wake-up call to show how cities across the USA were wasting valuable land and resources by prioritising car storage over more efficient land uses.

Despite parking being an often-overlooked topic, Shoup managed to make parking an exciting and essential part of transport planning. His book The High Cost of Free Parking became influential among planners, urbanists, and policymakers in north America.

By fixing parking policies, Shoup argued that cities could reduce car dependency, encourage public transport use, and make streets more pedestrian-friendly—all of which contribute to sustainability and liability.

Cities worldwide, from San Francisco to London, have adopted policies inspired by ‘Shoupian’ recommendations, leading to more efficient land use and better urban design. His work showed that something as seemingly mundane as parking could have a profound impact on housing, equity, and sustainability, making him a transformative and inspirational figure in transport planning.