Richard Day wrote:

UCLA professor and parking expert Donald Shoup estimates that in Chicago an above-ground parking spot costs about $29,000 to build, and an underground spot comes in at a cool $36,000. And because those minimum parking rules force builders to create a large number of extra empty spots, the actual rate buildings can charge to drivers is artificially low. So, developers pass along the cost in the form of higher rent to tenants. And those costs are eye-watering: researchers estimate that required garage parking raises rents by an average of 17 percent.

It gets worse. The wealthier you are, the more likely you are to drive. In 2019, the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning looked at travel patterns in Northeastern Illinois and found that the lowest income residents were most likely to rely on transit, and that car usage rose steadily with income. The most car-reliant residents made between $100,000 and $150,000 annually. High income households drive. Lower-income households pay rent. By forcing renters to subsidize parking, minimum parking requirements function as a tax on the poor to subsidize the wealthy.  And in less-wealthy neighborhoods where developers can’t pass along higher costs to renters, projects simply don’t get built in the first place—amplifying the one-two punch of gentrification and disinvestment that Chicago is all too familiar with.