Henry Grabar's "Paved Paradise" is a Masterpiece

It's the spiritual successor to "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" and important companion to "The High Cost of Free Parking."

If Don Shoup is the Parking God—the Ganesh of Gravelled Ground—then surely Henry Grabar is its Patron Saint, and he’ll gladly pay for the time he’s spent idling here. In about a week, we’ll all be able to read “Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World.” How’s this for praise: it’s the most exciting and potentially important planning book I’ve read since “The Death and Life of Great American Cities.” There’s a nonzero chance that, if enough people read even some of this book, that we might be able to knock this sticky policy and land use issue loose from the throes of what is.

Henry’s book is hopeful, but he also told me this:

Believe it or not, there is a story of a parking space attack that I thought was actually too gruesome to go in the book. And I won't say anything more about that. It just didn’t need to be included.

Too gruesome? This is a book about car storage.¹ That’s just it, though. Is it?

In a happy happenstance, “Paved Paradise” landed in my inbox because a publisher …