Homebuilding and Free Parking

In the last few years, a growing contingent of advocates who loosely organize under the "Yes In My Backyard" (YIMBY) banner have had some success in removing legislative and regulatory barriers to building new housing in famously restrictive places like Minneapolis, California, and Massachusetts. Other communities are considering such legislation as well, a welcome development in a nation desperate to add housing and lower home prices. One of these YIMBY reforms entails easing or removing parking requirements for new development in urban areas that force developers to include enough parking for every resident to own a car. In places near mass transit, such requirements can add greatly to the cost of construction while reducing the number of units that can be built, even though many would- be residents presumably want to use transit instead of personal vehicles.