Parking Shortages vs. Coke

Most cities require that new businesses provide a certain amount of free parking for both customers and employees. Residential developers are also required to create a minimum amount of parking for new homes. This is not a free market approach which is probably preferable.

Yglesias: "if I proposed dealing with the ensuring shortages by saying that anyone who wants to build a new building needs to also provide millions of dollars worth of Diet Coke to people in the neighborhood, people would look at me as if I were insane. Creating the Diet Coke shortages is not a favor to anyone—neither fans nor haters of Diet Coke benefit—and the regulatory mandate is an absurd subsidy to Diet Coke drinkers with no conceivable policy justification."