Residential parking in vibrant city districts : conference paper

Living downtown has advantages because it allows for a convenient access to a variety of shopping and leisure activities as well as disadvantages due to the difficulties in finding a parking spot when parking capacity is scarce. We formally model the trade-off in a vibrant city district between parking privileges for residents and economic vitality in terms of the product variety offered. We identify situations in which assigning on-street parking spaces to residential parking is a welfare-maximizing policy. Furthermore, we analyze the optimal share of residential parking spaces from the residents perspective only and find that it exceeds the welfare-maximizing share.