Skip to Content
Streetsblog USA home
Streetsblog USA home
Log In
Parking

Get Your Cameras Ready for Half-Empty Black Friday Parking Lots

If the parking lot at your local big box store looks like this on Black Friday, you're doing it wrong. Photo: Strong Towns
Does the parking lot at your local big box store look like this on Black Friday? Photo: Strong Towns
If the parking lot at your local big box store looks like this on Black Friday, you're doing it wrong. Photo: Strong Towns

It's standard practice to build parking lots to accommodate the maximum number of vehicles expected on the busiest shopping day of the year.

As a result, acres and acres of unnecessary asphalt make communities less walkable, waste land, funnel polluted runoff into our groundwater, erode tax bases, and drive up prices for lots of other goods that aren't car parking. Incredibly, a lot of these parking lots are so large they don't even fill most of the way up on Black Friday, America's high holiday of retail shopping.

Chuck Marohn of Strong Towns came up with an ingenious plan to help highlight this rather unsexy issue last year. He encouraged people to take pictures of half-empty parking lots on Black Friday and tweet them with the hashtag #blackfridayparking. Last year's contest produced some eye-poppers.

Chuck is encouraging people to do the same this year. If you're out there holiday shopping and come across one of those sad, empty parking lots, please tweet it and show the world the foolishness of our parking policies. For more information, check out the Strong Towns blog

In the meantime, Streetsblog USA wishes everyone a happy Thanksgiving, and looks forward to reviewing your spectacular pictures Monday.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog USA

Wednesday’s Headlines Have a System

The safe systems approach to street design, popular in Europe, could cut U.S. traffic deaths in half.

May 21, 2025

Does Transportation Advocacy Have a Place In the Wake of a Deadly Tornado?

Much of St. Louis is struggling in the wake of a deadly tornado. Amid such disasters, urbanism needs a pause and a rethink.

May 21, 2025

Tuesday’s Headlines Show Elections Have Consequences

"Woke" transit agencies need not apply for federal grants now that father of nine Sean Duffy is in charge.

May 20, 2025

Should We Treat the Local Bus As a Basic Right?

There's a way of framing public transit that makes the bus a useful mobility tool for everyone: as a moving extension of the sidewalk network.

May 20, 2025

Op-Ed: Public Transportation is Key to Social Mobility

"As wealth inequality grows and social mobility becomes more difficult, people without access to mobility will be left behind."

May 19, 2025

Car Harms Monday: Machines Took Over Cities and Left Humans in the Dust

There isn't enough physical space for every single household to store its fleet of personal vehicles in front of the home, nor is there space for everyone to drive at the same time. So let's fix that.

May 19, 2025
See all posts