Michael Giberson
No doubt that since Elinor Ostrom won a Nobel Prize last year for, among other things, her work on decentralized approaches to common pool resource issues, a small legion of social science graduate students are looking for new cases of non-governmental management of common pool resources.
Here is an example supplied by Fred McChesney: on-street parking spaces dug out from the snow in Chicago.
Alex Taborrak notes the Washington Post reports that in Boston the city has codified a similar practice: if you dig yourself a parking spot in the snow, a lawn chair or trash can will render the space yours for up to two days.
Perhaps a comparison to reclaimed-from-the-snow parking space management practices in the Washington, D.C., area would be possible. Given the amount of snow that has fallen in the capital area, you probably have a few weeks to collect the necessary comparative data.
ADDED: Pittsburgh offers another variant of law and practice:
“Chairs and barriers of any type holding parking spaces on city streets are considered abandoned property and will be removed and discarded,” Pittsburgh Police spokeswoman Diane Richard told Channel 4 Action News in an e-mail.
See also the discussion by Pitt Law professor Mike Madison. HT for both links to Freakonomics.
So Chicago has an informal practice guided by custom and tolerated by the city; Boston has the practice codified into city ordinance; Pittsburgh has an informal practice which is actively opposed by the city; and Washington DC doesn’t get serious snow often enough to have a well developed custom. Lots of angles to study.
What about Minneapolis and Milwaukee? What about Seattle or Denver? Any more reports?
STILL MORE: Via Market Design, where Al Roth dubs the practice “anti-social,” a Boston Globe story on claiming parking spots before the snow begins to fall, “Claiming a spot before shoveling? That’s not Southie.”