The Concrete Solution: Rethinking Parking Garages for Urban Vehicle Residency

This report examines the growing yet understudied phenomenon of urban vehicle residency, wherein economically active individuals, including professionals, retirees, and students—reside in personal vehicles due to housing constraints and shifting employment norms. Despite their stable engagement in urban economies, these residents are systematically excluded from infrastructure access through restrictive parking policies and service models misaligned with their needs. Using ethnographic interviews and spatial analysis, the study identifies three distinct resident typologies: Strategic Budgeters, Lifestyle Optimizers, and Self-Sufficient Nomads. While their motivations vary, all emphasize the need for legal, safe parking and basic infrastructure, while expressing resistance to institutionalized or service-heavy programs. The report reframes vehicle residency as a form of housing innovation and proposes the adaptive reuse of underutilized municipal parking garages as a scalable, infrastructure-based intervention. Garages provide environmental protection, utility access, and operational advantages over street parking or crisis-response models. A user-informed, three-tiered service model is introduced, alongside a spatially driven site selection strategy. A policy framework, drawing from carshare parking regulation, outlines steps for regulatory integration, stakeholder engagement, and interagency coordination. This model offers a cost-effective, inclusive alternative to enforcement-centric approaches. By leveraging existing infrastructure to accommodate diverse housing strategies, the findings contribute to urban planning literature on informal housing, mobility, and infrastructure adaptation.