Skip to Content
Streetsblog USA home
Streetsblog USA home
Log In

Streetfilms is proud to partner with ITDP to bring you this fun animation that's sort of a cross between those catchy Schoolhouse Rock shorts and the credit sequence for a 1960s-style Saul Bass film.

For too long cities tried to make parking a core feature of the urban fabric, only to discover that yielding to parking demand tears that fabric apart. Parking requirements for new buildings have quietly been changing the landscape, making walking and transit less viable while inducing more traffic. Chipping away at walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods has been a slow process that, over the years, turned the heart of American cities into parking craters and even mired some European cities in parking swamps.

Many cities around the world are now changing course by eliminating parking requirements while investing in walking, biking, and transit. Soon cities in the developing world will follow, providing many new lessons of their own.

Parking isn't the easiest topic to wrap your head around, but it is right at the core of the transportation problems facing most cities. We hope this film helps illuminate how to fix them.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog USA

Friday’s Headlines Are Over ICE

Traffic safety and transportation funding continue to get tangled up in immigration enforcement under Trump.

February 20, 2026

Talking Headways Podcast: Women Changing Cities

Chris and Melissa Bruntlett on their new book and the mobility of care work and the unpaid labor that undergirds the economy.

February 19, 2026

Calif. Advocates Stand Against Proposed Nuisance E-Bike Laws

...and for enforcement of good e-moto laws already on the books.

February 19, 2026

Thursday’s Headlines Walk Hard

Where you live probably has a lot to do with how much you walk.

February 19, 2026

When The Suburbs Want To Opt Out of Funding Regional Transit

A messy transit funding fight in Dallas may have reached a pause — but some advocates fear the détente won't hold.

February 19, 2026
See all posts