space.

Here's an idea: let's take a stretch of land, build it up and fill it full of offices, shops, and residences. Cram as much stuff that people would need or want into as small a space as possible. Then forget to leave anyone a place to park.

At last, something where Boston and Cambridge really are on par with Manhattan and San Francisco: parking, or more specifically, the lack thereof. Many residents here don't even own cars because it's too much hassle. Want to see the epitome of futility? Peace will break out in the Middle East before you can find a place to park in Harvard Square on a Friday night. Where else can you pay $1500 a month for a 400-square-foot efficiency and still have to rent a parking spot to go along with it?

File this under things taken for granted, but parking was never an issue in other places where I've lived, at least not to the extent it is here. It's just common sense...you need a car to get from where you live to where you work and where you shop, and therefore you need a place to park. Even at Georgia Tech, in the heart of Atlanta, where the parking-office motto was "parking is a privilege, not a right," they at least had the sense to put up a couple of big decks to handle the load of commuters who knew better than to try to negotiate MARTA. Say what you will about the merits of strip malls, but at least you never had to worry about how you were going to get stuff home on the T.

Strip malls and other stores with big parking lots are in short supply in the Boston area, largely due to the infestation of hole-in-the-wall shops left over from the 19th century. The thinking goes that hole-in-the-wall shops that are only big enough to hold three people at a time obviously only need one or two parking spots out in front. And of course, there's no place to put a larger lot even if you wanted to, because every square inch of real estate is already crammed full of buildings. I'm sure the locals find this "quaint."

Another kick in the head is the fact that many towns around here don't allow overnight parking on the street, so if you have guests from out of town you've got to find a place to stash their car. Funny how I never appreciated the convenience of a big, spacious driveway growing up in suburbia.

Of course, to avoid the hassle of parking you can always take the T...if you're willing to be jam packed in with a bazillion other people and you've got an extra hour to burn at either end of your day. Boston is compact and dense enough that public transportation can actually do some good, but the T is pretty wretched: overcrowded, unreliable, slow, and still not even particularly convenient. As an example of how warped my perspective has become, if I'm flying out of Logan for a weekend trip, it's actually worth it to me to pay the $22 a day to park there to avoid lugging my stuff through the two buses and three trains that get me there in an hour when I can drive it in twenty minutes. Likewise, $8 for a place to park downtown during dinner seems almost reasonable, compared to the extra time it takes to get anywhere on the T.

Call me crazy, but isn't it obvious that if they want you to come to their store or restaurant or whatever, they should provide a place to park? This is not a novel concept; in most other places it's the rule, not the exception. Next thing you know, Boston will find a way to charge you for the air you breathe.