This video explains the history of parking policies in the United States and their impact on the environment.
Students will learn that cities need parking solutions that will allow for more housing and green space.
Teaching Tips
Positives
Students will learn that mandatory parking minimums harm the environment.
The video shows how sprawling parking lots take up space that could be used for housing.
Additional Prerequisites
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Differentiation
Social studies classes could use this video to discuss parking policies that reduce the number of cars in urban areas.
Students could research parking management strategies that create more urban green spaces, then design parking solutions for a local area.
Other resources on this topic include this interactive map that shows which cities have eliminated some or all of their parking mandates, this text on urban heat islands, and this video on underground bike parking in the Netherlands.
Scientist Notes
The video recommends a suitable parking management approach, "on-street parking," to reduce the high cost of parking and also manage space for buildings, environmental sustainability, and other land use issues. This is suitable and recommended for teaching.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ETS1: Engineering Design
MS-ETS1-1 Define the criteria and constraints of a design problem with sufficient precision to ensure a successful solution, taking into account relevant scientific principles and potential impacts on people and the natural environment that may limit possible solutions.
HS-ETS1-3 Evaluate a solution to a complex real-world problem based on prioritized criteria and trade-offs that account for a range of constraints, including cost, safety, reliability, and aesthetics, as well as possible social, cultural, and environmental impacts.
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
Dimension 2: Civics
D2.Civ.12.6-8 Assess specific rules and laws (both actual and proposed) as means of addressing public problems.
D2.Civ.13.9-12 Evaluate public policies in terms of intended and unintended outcomes, and related consequences.
Dimension 2: Geography
D2.Geo.2.6-8 Use maps, satellite images, photographs, and other representations to explain relationships between the locations of places and regions, and changes in their environmental characteristics.
D2.Geo.5.6-8 Analyze the combinations of cultural and environmental characteristics that make places both similar to and different from other places.
D2.Geo.12.6-8 Explain how global changes in population distribution patterns affect changes in land use in particular places.
D2.Geo.8.9-12 Evaluate the impact of economic activities and political decisions on spatial patterns within and among urban, suburban, and rural regions.
