Remembering Donald Shoup (1938-2025)
Professor Donald Shoup passed away on February 6, 2025. Among many other significant achievements and honors he was a founding Advisory Board member of PRN.
Donald’s curiosity, intelligence, passion, generosity, and kindness allowed him not only to expose the critical problems with modern parking policy, but also to ignite and nurture a movement to change them and make the world a better place.
The Parking Reform Network wishes to provide our community with a place to share their stories and thoughts to remember and honor Donald.
Professor Shoup was a donor, member, and booster of PRN’s work. If you are so moved, you can honor his legacy and support the parking reform movement with a memorial donation.
It may be cliche to say that a book was life-changing, but "The High Cost of Free Parking" truly was for me. I consider myself a decently bright college-educated urbanist, but The High Cost of Free Parking opened by eyes to an unseen world of hidden second-order effects and widespread consequences of a seemingly insignificant everyday occurrence: where to park cars. It literally opened up a whole new world for me of understanding how housing, economic vibrance, and urban quality of life are all impacted by billions of small patches of land devoted to cars. And how creating better cities can start by simple things like removing government restrictions. The mission now for all of us is to continue creating the better world Donald Shoup envisioned and worked so hard to bring to reality for all of us.