My friend Bill and I had a long discussion this weekend about parking here at UVA. Bill claimed that parking was “for the people” and that he should be able to park wherever he wants. I explained to him, using Buchanan’s “An Economic Theory of Clubs”, that parking is not a public good but a private good given that it is reasonably excludable and rivalrous in consumption.
I live on Wertland Street and Bill lives at Bond. He comes over to do homework all the time and I always warn him not to park on the street because the parking patrol here is fierce and he doesn’t have a parking permit. Bill comes from a small town in Champagne, Illinois where parking is in abundance and it seems that anyone can park wherever they want with no consequences because Champagne police are not concerned with parking infractions.
I explained that parking is reasonably excludable because there is often limited space in population dense areas such as UVA. I also explained that parking is obviously rivalrous because there are more drivers than parking spots available on Wertland Street requiring some people to park elsewhere. He still wasn’t convinced that parking should be this restrictive– given his upbringing in parking abundant Champagne– so I explained further. While I agreed with him that parking has degrees of publicness especially in less-densely populated areas, parking on Wertland should not be considered a public good because the people authorized to park there have to pay every month for a spot. His decision to take an available space on Wertland Street is robbing another resident. This can also be seen as a negative consumption externality because the consumption of a parking spot by Bill reduces the well-being of Wertland residents who now have to spend time and fuel driving around to find a place to park.
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