Parking sounds mundane until you realize it acts like an operating system for the modern city. On our live episode recorded at the APA Nebraska Fall Workshop with journalist and author Henry Grabar, we trace how a space designed for storing cars came to shape housing, transit, budgets, safety, climate resilience, and even what kinds of buildings are legal to construct. From early street management to mid‑century mandates, parking policy filters into everything residents notic

The core argument is that free parking is never truly free. We might not pay at the curb, but we pay for it in other ways.