By Stan Paul
Donald Shoup, distinguished professor emeritus of urban planning, whose decades of teaching and scholarship at UCLA greatly influenced the field of land-use planning as well as generations of scholars, students and urban planners, died following a short illness on February 6, 2025, in Los Angeles. He was 86.
Shoup, a titan in the field of urban planning and specifically parking reform, is renowned for his pathbreaking research into how cities manage, or mismanage, parking spaces. This work, which demonstrated that seemingly mundane provisions in zoning codes had rendered many places overly dependent on driving, brought him academic accolades and made him an unlikely hero for a generation of urbanists determined to repair American cities.
Among planners, government officials and activists, he became known as “UCLA’s parking guru,” a “parking rock star” and the “Shoup Dogg.” A Facebook group, thousands strong, sprung up organically to help spread his message. He even found his way into pop culture, as the subject of a YouTube animated feature on the television show “Adam Ruins Everything.”
Shoup was born in Long Beach in 1938 and earned his PhD in economics in 1968 at Yale University, where he also received master’s and bachelor’s degrees in economics and a BE in electrical engineering. He came to UCLA’s Institute of Government and Public Affairs in 1968 as a postdoctoral scholar and research economist — the same year as Harvey S. Perloff, the founding dean of the School of Architecture and Urban Planning.
Following his two-year appointment, Shoup taught at the University of Michigan but returned to UCLA in 1974 as an associate professor of urban planning, becoming a full professor in 1980.
During his time at UCLA, he chaired the Department of Urban Planning, directed the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, and also held appointments and visiting and honorary scholar posts at several academic institutions, including Cambridge University, the University of Hawaii, the University of Buffalo, and the Beijing Transportation Research Center. In 1993, he was invited to the White House in recognition of his research on employer-paid parking. From 2009-2017, he served as editor of the University of California’s ACCESS magazine. He retired from UCLA in 2015 as a distinguished professor.
Over the course of his career, Shoup won numerous awards. He was a fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners, a select group of professional planners nominated by their peers in recognition of their “significant and transformational improvements to the field of planning and the communities they served.” In 2017, he received the Distinguished Educator Award from the Associated Collegiate Schools of Planning. The award, presented biennially, is the highest honor bestowed by the organization in appreciation of significant contributions that have made a difference to planning scholarship, education and practice.
In 2021, he received the Dickson Emeritus Professorship Award honoring outstanding research, scholarly work, teaching and/or educational service performed at UCLA by an emeritus or emerita professor since retirement.
Much of this prestige flowed from Shoup’s landmark book, “The High Cost of Free Parking,” which was first published in 2005. The book was the culmination of decades of his work and research on parking reform and parking as the link between land use and transportation.
Revised in 2011, “The High Cost of Free Parking” has been translated into multiple languages, including Chinese, Russian, Romanian and Persian, and recorded as an audiobook. The book argues that cities make two crucial mistakes regarding parking. First, they fail to price the parking on their streets, and as a result curb spaces fill up and become hard to find. Second, to solve the problem they have created on the street, cities force into existence, through their zoning codes, excessive amounts of parking off street. In combination, these two errors compound each other. They lead cities to quietly subsidize cars, increase traffic congestion, worsen air pollution, encourage sprawl, degrade urban design, damage the economy, raise housing costs, reduce walkability, accelerate global warming, and make urban life more difficult for people who do not drive.
Shoup’s proposed solution was to reverse these mistakes: start pricing the parking on-street, and stop requiring it off-street. The book became a classic in urban planning circles. Shoup wrote with wry wit and charm, and chose clarity over academic jargon, making it accessible. As a result, Shoup’s reform ideas gained steady acceptance in cities worldwide. The Parking Reform Network, a national nonprofit founded to advance Shoup’s ideas, has documented over 3,000 cities that have adopted some of his suggested reforms.
In 2018, the American Planning Association included the publication of “The High Cost of Free Parking” in its timeline of key events in American city planning since 1900. Other books in this timeline included Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” and Jane Jacobs’ “Death and Life of Great American Cities.” A follow-up book that he edited, “Parking and the City” also became a vital resource for reformers; the planning website Planetizen included it in its list of top-10 books published in 2018.
Despite his retirement, Shoup was still a very active member of the UCLA Luskin community. He could often be seen in the corridors of the Luskin building or at the ITS offices. He was also scheduled to teach his famous parking class in the spring 2025 quarter.
He is survived by his wife Pat Shoup, brother Frank Shoup, his niece Allison Shoup, nephew Elliot Shoup, Elliot’s wife Megan and their three children.
Read more about Donald Shoup’s vast accomplishments and share your memories at this Tribute Page.
Tribute gifts in Don’s memory can be made to the Donald and Pat Shoup Endowed Fellowship Fund in Urban Planning at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, which will support fellowships for graduate students focusing on transportation studies. Gifts can also be made by check payable to the UCLA Foundation. Please include “Fund #82172E” in the memo field and mail to: The UCLA Foundation; PO Box 7145; Pasadena, CA 91109-9903
