Strong Towns Friday News Digest, August 28, 2026 The competitive advantage of the American mall has long been an excessive volume of free parking, but even that is starting to change. USA Today reports that shopping malls around the country are experimenting with charging for the most desirable parking spaces. Shoppers are apparently outraged, which I find both hilarious and revealing. This is how prices are supposed to work. If shoppers don’t value a prime parking spot enough to pay $2.45 for it, that tells the mall something useful. And if they do, that tells them something useful, too. Either way, nobody needs a parking mandate to figure it out. Most mall parking is still free, especially in suburbia. Economic studies show that many operators dangle free parking – or parking priced below what it actually costs – to entice more shoppers. But the loss leader can add up for American institutions – and not just malls. The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that cheap or free campus parking is a major financial drain. Annually, the median college loses nearly $400,000 on surface lots and over $1.2 million on garages per 1,000 spaces. — USA Today