Urban Issues

Surface Parking Lots: A Downtown Vibrancy Killer

July 7, 2011 50 comments  Print Article

According to Downtown Vision (DVI), more than 50% of downtown Jacksonville's streetscape consists of "dead space" - either parking lots, garages, vacant buildings, or buildings less than 25% occupied. This collection of aerials visually highlight the impact dead spaces (surface parking and underutilized vacant property) in downtown Jacksonville and a number of cities across North America have. Naturally, those with the least amount of surface lots tend to be the most vibrant pedestrian-scale environments.