You can buy Paved Paradise here or at a bookstore near you. Now out in paperback!
Accolades
The New Republic Books of the Year
The New Yorker Best Books of 2023
Shortlist, 2024 Zócalo Book Prize
Praise
“[A] wry and revelatory new book about parking (a combination of words I never thought I would write) . . . The dream of the open road assumes a place to put our cars when we arrive at our destination. This is perhaps why so many Americans expect parking to be 'convenient, available and free'—in other words, 'perfect.' Grabar empathizes with these desires, which is partly what makes Paved Paradise so persuasive.”
—Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times Book Review“Consistently entertaining and often downright funny…. Grabar has a journalist’s essential gift for making a story out of people, not propositions.”
—Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker“Makes the bold claim that ‘parking is the primary determinant of the way the place you live looks, feels, and functions.’ By the end of this compelling and insistent book, you might actually believe it.”
—Barbara Spindel, The Wall Street Journal“You might expect a book about parking to be a snore. But I have news to report. Henry Grabar’s Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World is not a slog; it’s a romp, packed with tales of anger, violence, theft, lust, greed, political chicanery and transportation policy gone wrong . . . [Grabar] lays out the issue cleanly and clearly . . . His highly entertaining take on a serious subject will persuade more people to at least take a good look.”
—Russ Mitchell, The Los Angeles Times“It’s hard to imagine a more boring topic for a book. But the parking gods have smiled on Henry Grabar, who has managed to write an engrossing account of the ways in which parking has come to define — and in many cases ruin — the modern American city.”
—Josh Gabert-Doyon, The Financial Times
Broadcast media
Fresh Air with Terry Gross, May 9, 2023
ABC News, May 15, 2023
All Things Considered, May 8 2023
Washington Post Live, July 27, 2023
C-SPAN Q&A, June 6, 2023
CBC Sunday Magazine, May 28, 2023
99 Percent Invisible, May 16, 2023
Wired: Have a Nice Future, June 14, 2023
Vox: Today Explained, May 19, 2023
Stay Tuned with Preet Bharara, June 1, 2023
The New Republic: The Politics of Everything, April 26, 2023
The War on Cars, May 23, 2023
The American Scholar, May 12, 2023
New Books Network, May 9, 2023
Streetsblog, May 23, 2023
Bowery Boys, June 23, 2023
Vox, May 9, 2023
The Atlantic, June 4, 2023
L.A. Times, July 7, 2023
Times of London, May 13, 2023
Philadelphia Inquirer, June 5, 2023
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 20, 2023
Car and Driver, May 28, 2023
Bloomberg City Lab, May 2, 2023
The New Republic, April 25, 2023
Fast Company, May 17, 2023
City Journal, June 2, 2023
NJ.com, June 25, 2023
Irish Examiner, June 15, 2023
Inside Higher Ed, June 20, 2023
Metropolis Magazine, May 10, 2023
Harvard Magazine, August 1, 2023
Santa Fe New Mexican, Nov. 5, 2023