Mapping L.A. County's 'Parking Crater'

Some 200 square miles of Los Angeles County were dedicated to parking as of 2010. That equates to roughly 18.6 million parking spaces, or about 3.3 per registered car, according to recent research published in the Journal of the American Planning Association.

Those certainly sound like extravagant numbers, but what do they actually look like? Shane Phillips of the planning blog Better Institutions created a visual. Mashed into one hideous crater, all of L.A.’s parking (including curbside spots, lots, and off-street garages) runs 16 miles in diameter, and would encompass a staggering portion of the county’s urbanized area. (For comparison, here’s a map of all of L.A. County.) Phillips writes: