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.
I met a number of brilliant professors at UCLA Urban Planning in the 90s, but none were more unassuming and engaged than Don. I recall that in a class when I resisted his economic analysis because of unacknowledged equity outcomes, he laughed out loud at my example because it was so extreme as to be useless--I think the topic was requiring street trees at sale--and yet 1) I felt no humiliation because he made it seem just like a courtyard conversation among peers and 2) he subsequently asked me (a lowly first-year masters student) to review a related paper of his to challenge him around those same equity concerns. Don blessed us all with his creative and precise mind, fundamental egalitarianism, and good cheer. His end both saddens me and reminds me of my gratitude. Thank you, professor.