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

Don’t Forget to Expose Your City’s Parking Failures This Black Friday

If it’s half-empty on Black Friday, it will never be full. Photo: Brandon Lerch

It's that time of year again -- time to show how much space we waste on commercial parking!

Strong Towns is organizing its annual #BlackFridayParking campaign, asking readers to snap photos of half-empty parking lots on one of the biggest shopping days of the year.

Vast parking lots and garage consume far too much space in our cities and towns. They make places unwalkable. Their impermeable surfaces generate runoff that pollutes our water. And they erode the fiscal viability of local governments by increasing infrastructure costs and weakening the tax base.

And yet, everywhere you look in America, enormous seas of parking are the norm at retail centers. The fact that many parking lots remain half-empty on Black Friday is proof that we've gone way too far with all this asphalt.

The Strong Towns contest is a chance to step back and call attention to this problem, so get your cameras ready and remember the #BlackFridayParking hashtag.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog USA

Friday’s Headlines Got DOGE’d Again

Amidst uncertainty about future federal funding, Amtrak is cutting $100 million and 450 jobs.

May 9, 2025

Friday Video: Where Was the First Public Bus Route in the World?

...and which surprising historical figure helped launch it?

May 9, 2025

Talking Headways Podcast: ‘Normal’ is Not Correct, Someone Died Here

After a crash, the debris is quickly cleaned up and everyone moves on (usually too quickly). But these two experts are asking us to all slow down.

May 8, 2025

Thursday’s Headlines Are Not Gonna Pay a Lot for This Truck

President Trump's tariffs, along with rising insurance costs, are driving down Americans' interest in owning a car.

May 8, 2025

How One Suburb is Using Transit to Transform Into a True City

A Washington State suburb may be poised to evolve into a true transit-oriented hub – and offer lessons for other bedroom communities, even during an anti-transit era.

May 8, 2025
See all posts