In this searching interview, award-winning journalist Henry Grabar digs deep into the paradox of parking: We all want it, but we ignore the costs. The pursuit of the perfect parking space, he finds, worsens traffic, increases housing costs, hurts small businesses, endangers pedestrians, destroys wetlands, accelerates global warming, and, on a day-to-day basis, drives us to distraction. So what can be done? Based on extensive reporting and research, Grabar argues that smarter policy can make our cities more vibrant, just, and sustainable, one converted parking space at a time. 

Henry Grabar is a journalist, researcher, Harvard Loeb Fellow, and author of Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World.

Interviewer Kathleen Rooney is transportation policy lead at the Ulupono Initiative, a Hawaii-based investment impact firm. 

The Better Tomorrow Speaker Series features incisive conversations on the most pressing issues of our time. The series is a joint venture of the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, the Learning Coalition, and the Hawai‘i Community Foundation. It is administered by the College of Arts, Languages, and Letters and in cooperation with the UH Foundation.

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