Farewell to a Legendary Urban Planner, Professor and Parking Guru
Donald Shoup, distinguished professor emeritus 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 Feb. 6, 2025, at age 86. Shoup was a titan in the fields of urban planning and specifically parking reform, and his landmark book, “The High Cost of Free Parking,” resulted in the adoption of many of his parking reform ideas in cities around the nation and world.
Remembrances
‘Don believed that data-driven policy solutions shouldn’t just stay locked in academic journals. He made it his mission to make sure those ideas shaped policy right here in L.A.’
— Councilwoman Katy Yaroslavsky at the close of the Feb. 11 Los Angeles City Council meeting adjourned in Shoup’s honor
‘Few scholars have had a real-world impact that can rival Don’s. … His research has quite literally changed cities.’
— Michael Manville, chair of UCLA Luskin Urban Planning
‘He is the only urban planning faculty I know who generated a movement — ‘the Shoupistas,’ as his adoring students but also many others inspired by his writings called themselves.’
— Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, distinguished professor of urban planning and interim dean of UCLA Luskin
The Long Road to Success
Professor Donald Shoup was the face of parking reform, with the goal of ending arbitrary policies that exact a high toll on the health of communities. After decades of persistence, policies championed by Shoup are taking hold around the country and world — the subject of “The Long Road to Success,” the cover story of the Summer 2024 issue of the Luskin Forum.
About the Artwork: Isaiah Mouw hosts The Parking Podcast, and Shoup was a guest. Mouw had a friend create artwork that the professor adopted as his signature image on social media. It shows Shoup’s face in a style made famous by artist Shepard Fairey. Mouw said, “I saw the Obama ‘Hope’ poster and thought parking reform could use a ‘Shoup’ poster.”
Shoup as Influencer
Shoup was highly sought-after by news outlets seeking to explain land-use planning in a clear, concise and colorful manner. Here is a fraction of his voluminous media appearances and op-eds:
Parking Is Sexy Now. Thank Donald Shoup. — Bloomberg CityLab
Why California’s Parking Reform Matters for Housing and Climate — Governing
How Parking Requirements Hurt the Poor — Washington Post
Parking Under Pressure: Why 3 Cities Raised Prices on the Best Spots — Smart Cities Dive
How L.A. Can Fix Our Scary Sidewalks for the Olympics — Los Angeles Times
Awash in Asphalt, Cities Rethink Their Parking Needs — New York Times
Donald Shoup Gets Animated About Parking — Adam Ruins Everything
Illustrating Parking Reform: Dr. Donald Shoup Plays with Matchbox Cars — Streetfilms
People Behind the Plans: Donald Shoup — American Planning Association
Cities Need Housing. Parking Requirements Make it Harder. — Bloomberg CityLab
Bruin to Bruin: Donald Shoup — Daily Bruin Podcasts
More on Shoup’s personal website, shoupdogg.com
Images of Shoup
View more photos on the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies website
Distinctions
A few of Shoup’s numerous awards and honors recognizing his contributions to the field of urban planning.
National Excellence Award for a Planning Pioneer, American Planning Association
Seaside Prize, Seaside Institute
Distinguished Educator Award, Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning
Fellow, American Institute of Certified Planners
Edward A. Dickson Emeritus Professorship Award, UCLA
Chester Rapkin Award, Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning
Planning Pioneer Award, California Chapter of the American Planning Association
Planning Pioneer Award, Los Angeles Chapter of the American Planning Association
The Shoup Endowed Fellowship Fund
Tribute gifts 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. Tribute gifts to the UCLA Center for Parking Policy will carry forward Donald’s pioneering research, ideas, and impact on urban planning and transportation policy.
Memorial Service
On Oct. 3, 2025, hundreds of current students, alumni, faculty, staff, community activists and parking enthusiasts gathered at the Meyer and Renee Luskin Conference Center to honor the life and legacy of Distinguished Professor Donald Shoup.
The afternoon began with a book talk on “The Shoup Doctrine: Essays Celebrating Donald Shoup and Parking Reforms” and the official launch of the UCLA Center for Parking Policy. Later in the day, speakers took the stage to share their stories about Shoup’s legendary wit and his uncanny ability to steer nearly any conversation toward parking — always with humor, insight, and enthusiasm.
View the full story and photos from the event
In His Words
“The high cost of free parking is paid by everyone, even people who are too poor to own a car. … A city where everyone happily pays for free parking is a fool’s paradise.”
Watch UCLA’s final interview with Donald Shoup
Tributes
Upon news of his passing, social media posts and tributes to Shoup have been pouring in. A selection:
“Donald’s curiosity, intelligence, passion, generosity and kindness allowed him to not only expose the critical problems with modern parking policy, but to also ignite and nurture a movement to change them and make the world a better place.” — Parking Reform Network
“Everything he did, he did well because he would research exactly how to do it and what he should be doing.” — Pat Shoup, Don’s wife of nearly six decades, in the Daily Bruin
“As he gathered up jaw-dropping data and orthodoxy-shattering insights about parking, his work eventually started to reshape the way cities function and feel.” — Wall Street Journal
Shoup’s “provocative and occasionally amusing 734-page treatise on the economics of parking sparked reforms in thousands of cities, helping reduce traffic, create green space and make cities more walkable.” — New York Times
“Ideas are only any good if there are people to put them into practice. … We should all be so lucky, when our time on the meter runs out, to leave a legacy like his.” — Henry Grabar, author of “Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World”
“The beauty of the Shoupian worldview is that it both explains the dire condition of so many cities and plots paths to recovery.” — William Fulton, California Planning and Development Report
“The UCLA urban-planning professor … was not merely the top scholar in his field but its Elvis and its Lennon and its Jagger, all bundled into one tweed sport coat.” — Curbed
Arbitrary parking minimums, Shoup thought, “were clearly a product of the reptilian cortex, the most primitive part of the brain, and they well deserved one of the best of his large collection of puns: ‘Aparkalypse Now!’ ” — The Economist
“Shoup has a strong claim on being the scholar who will have had the greatest impact on your day-to-day life, radically changing how we approach the unglamorous problem of how and where we park our cars — and, in turn, where we can live, how we move about and the form our cities take.” — Nolan Gray, UCLA Luskin PhD student and author of the book “Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It”
“I think that parking is important for all of you. That the average car is parked 95% of the time. And some of your listeners were probably even conceived in a parked car.” — Donald Shoup in a 2005 NPR audio clip, shared in a remembrance on All Things Considered
“I read Professor Shoup’s work when I was in planning school, and his research on parking completely opened my eyes. Now, I have the privilege of working on policy directly related to parking, transportation, and land use in Los Angeles with a handful of Shoupistas on my own staff, some who studied directly under him.” — Los Angeles City Council member Nithya Raman
“His legacy looms large over the transportation strategies for L.A.’s megaevents. … The fact that L.A. could even aspire to host a ‘car-free’ games owes a great debt to Donald Shoup repeating, for decades, that just because you’re going somewhere in this city, you’re not automatically guaranteed a free parking spot when you get there.” — Alissa Walker, Torched
“Over more than a half century of clear writing, clever quips and exhaustive scholarship, Donald Shoup became one of the world’s foremost experts and influencers on a topic seemingly as mundane as it is universal: parking.” — Los Angeles Times
” ‘The High Cost of Free Parking’ made parking interesting and explained how it is vitally important. It kicked off an era of parking reform that is helping to remake cities and suburbs throughout America.” — Robert Steuteville, Congress for the New Urbanism
“Through his work on parking, land use and transportation, he literally reshaped the landscape of cities across the world and here in Westwood, where he lived and worked for decades.” — North Westwood Neighborhood Council
“Farewell to our friend Donald Shoup, the guru who showed how parking can make and break a city. He was decades ahead of his time and we’re still trying to catch up with him. The legacy of his life and his times will never expire.” — Janette Sadik-Khan, former New York City Department of Transportation Commissioner
“Donald Shoup explained to Americans the high cost of free parking, showing the way toward more walkable downtowns and affordable housing. … Through his intellectual leadership, the trend of subsidizing cars at the expense of people is beginning to buckle.” — U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA)
“Donald Shoup may have spent more time thinking about parking than anyone in the United States. … He focused on the problem of how to price parking spaces in downtown areas to make cities more vibrant and attractive places.” — News Center Maine
Share Your Memories
I wasn’t sure what to write about Don. I wasn’t sure I was even going to write anything about Don until I had a friend ask me about it.
I’m not an urban planner, but I worked with Don on ACCESS Magazine for about 5 years, and those were some of the best times I’ve had working at a job. We laughed A LOT about a variety of things, and one of the best compliments I ever received was from Don. Upon reading one article that I spent a lot of time editing, Don called me up and said, “This is some of the best editing I’ve ever seen!” and was genuinely excited about it. I still hold onto the compliment as one of the highlights of my life.
But I’m also grateful to have gotten to know Don and Pat on a personal level, to be able to have dinners with them, tell stories, and laugh about life. My wife, Esther, feels the same.
Don also didn’t seem to stress about much in life, except maybe edits. He made life feel lighter when you were around him. I’m forgetting the exact quote he used to use but I think it was Isobel English, “Nothing is very important, and few things are important at all.” I actually worked harder and put more effort into my work because he gave me the space to try new things, to fail, to own my work as my own.
Don was just a great guy and he will be missed. Even though I didn’t see him very often anymore, I’m sad to know that he’s not a phone call away. But I’m grateful to have had the time I did with him. The world needs more Donald Shoups in it.
Donald was such a kind, humorous, intelligent, and original thinking man. He took me under his wing, wrote me letters of recommendation, and came to several cities that I was working for to help shed the light on the way of the Shoup Dogg… and always stayed in touch. I will always remember him and I inspire to be like him in some small ways.
I took Professor Shoup’s Urban Transportation Economics class in spring 2006 and it changed my life. It was my sophomore year and I still didn’t know what career I wanted to pursue, so I signed up for his class because it satisfied requirements for several majors and fit my schedule. Lo and behold, a class I selected out of convenience ended up determining my future. I absolutely loved his class and drank his parking philosophy Kool Aid like a college kid at a frat party. I think I annoyed a lot of friends that quarter with all my talk about parking policy, but I simply could not stop thinking about his class. His class inspired me to take more urban planning courses, and I’m an urban planner today because Professor Shoup opened my eyes to the world of planning. The High Cost of Free Parking is one of the very few textbooks I kept from my undergrad and grad school programs and I kick my 20-year-old self for not asking him to sign it…even though 20-year-old me would have thought that was really weird. Thank you, Professor Shoup, for your immense impact on my life and on the planning world. You will be sorely missed!
Don Shoup is iconic in our field. Don was an economist interested in urban planning. He took economists’ fundamental policy idea (get the prices right) and applied it to urban planning’s great challenge (what to do about traffic and transportation). He did all this via compelling study and argument.
Pam and I greatly enjoyed the company of Pat and Don. We saw them often and treasure the memories. Yes, parking often entered the discussion. How could it not?
Donald had a significant impact on my professional evolution, as I became an urban and real estate economist, rather than the urban planner I was studying to be. Besides his common sense positions on paying for parking, I have a many fond remembrances, as he was fascinated by social behavior. One was his astonishment when he surveyed the class as to who was watching “Upstairs Downstairs.” While 75% of the country was watching, not a single hand was raised in his class, One of my most cherished quotes of his was that “the best politically acceptable taxes are borne by foreigners living abroad.”A brilliant and amusing mind!
Don was my colleague, friend and co-conspirator. He joined our cause for disability rights and in particular to stem the abuse of Handicap Placards. His commitment to these issues was second-to-none. He will be terrible missed. On a personal note, I always admired (and envied) that he stayed fully engaged until the very end (and went with his “boots on..”) A prince of a man. RIP Don. Fernando Torres-Gil
I was deeply saddened to learn about Prof. Donald Shoup’s passing. When I reached out to him for guidance on a project I was working on, not only did he respond, but he also engaged in multiple exchanges, offering detailed insights, references, and practical advice that helped refine my thoughts and approach.
His lasting impact on the betterment of urban spaces and parking reform has inspired many like me to continue his mission in other areas that impact human life. Losing such a mentor is hard, but his wisdom, patience, and humility will continue to guide and inspire me.
Thank you, Prof. Donald Shoup, for your profound impact on me and my work.