New York City, NYC, hard to park where you wanna be. Okay, pathetic Mot rhead reference aside, Slate's Daniel Gross posted an interesting piece last week on parking as economic indicator, noting that because of easy signage changes, "a spurt in growth or a sudden downturn is more likely to show up at the parking garage more rapidly than it would in a GDP number or a company's quarterly earnings." Although we grew up in the 'burbs where parking was free and easy, we've had plenty of experiences with commuter parking in dense cities (notably during the Bay Area boom times of the late '90s), and while city parking is a far from imperfect science, judging from Gross' piece, it's a pretty solid one for determining economic health in urban areas.
Baby, you can park my car [Slate]
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Like, Omygod, Valet Girls [Internal]