The massive “Snowmageddon” snowstorm is a good time to consider this interesting 2001 article about snowstorms and parking space property rights by Northwestern University law professor Fred McChesney [HT: Alex Tabarrok]:
Before snowfalls, a parking space belongs to the one who occupies it: you leave it, you lose it. In wintertime Chicago, however, excavating one’s car changes the system of property rights. Once car owners dig themselves out of their snow cocoon (Chicagoans carry snow shovels in their trunks for this), they claim the place they cleared as their own. How? Diggers routinely place lawn furniture, buckets, two-by-fours, bar stools, orange highway construction cones and other markers in the space they have just dug out. That means the space now belongs to the excavator. When he leaves, the markers dictate that the space must sit empty until the owner returns. “People do look at these spaces as their own property,” a local law professor comments.
The space belongs to the original snow-mining engineer until the snow melts along the curb. Woe betide anyone who would take that space while its owner is away. Others in the neighborhood—who have undertaken similar excavations and staked out their own spaces—will protect the space for its absent owner. Broken windows, scratched paint, deflated tires and other punishments often follow parking in a space designated by whatever debris marks the excavator’s property….
The Chicago snow system is an interesting story in its own right, but better, it teems with economic lessons about property rights. First, there must always be some mechanism to allocate scarce goods. But sometimes, private property (either a formal legal claim or an informal right respected by others) is not necessarily required, nor necessarily desirable. Property is costly to define and enforce. In good weather, open access to street parking requires no definition or enforcement of property, and allocation on a first come, first served basis works well enough. However, open access as a property-rights system works less well when scarcity increases. No one claims parking spaces on the street except in winter, when conditions reduce the number of parking spaces.
Second, government is not necessary for the definition and enforcement of personal property rights. The Chicago system operates totally privately….
The tough issue is whether the Chicago system is better than any real-world alternative. Writers who condemn the practice treat the situation as one of mere distribution of a given amount of parking space. But an economist would predict that permitting private property would incite others to expand the amount of space. And so it does. Not only do those who dug out their cars the first morning have a space thereafter, but neighbors whose cars were not on the street begin to hack away the snow masses created by city plows to make a space for themselves. As black patches increase, the snow melts fast along the cubs. In both respects, the result is not just distribution of a given quantity of space, but creation of more space.
Over the last twenty years, legal scholars have chipped away at the traditional view that property rights must necessarily be created and enforced by government. McChesney’s article was a good contribution to this growing literature. Yale lawprof Bob Ellickson’s book Order Without Law was a milestone in the same field, as was recent Nobel Prize winner Elinor Ostrom’s work on private creation and enforcement of collective property rights.
It will be interesting to see whether Chicago-style parking space rights will develop in the DC area in the aftermath of the present storm. I predict that one winter of massive storms won’t be enough to get the system started, especially if a long time passes before another big storm occurs.
UPDATE: This Boston Globe article describes the operations of a similar system in Boston, though also noting some disputes over the norms involved.
josh bornstein says:
Yeah, I also don’t think it will catch on in DC. Not for many years, at least. The reason why it works in Chicago is that all parties (generally speaking) understand the rules. In DC, if I dug out my car and ‘reserved’ that space with furniture etc, it’s very likely that someone who didn’t understand the rules would just move my stuff away. If that person later came back to find a vandalized car, s/he would not know the reason, unless I were also to leave a helpful note. (“I’ve flattened one tyre b/c you snaked my parking spot. Don’t do it again!”)
Of course, if my neighbors were around when you tried to take my spot, it’s certainly possible that they would have educated you, and you would have moved on and would have hunted for an abandoned spot.
An interesting post. Something we who live in LA (and other warm-weather cities) would never even think of.
February 11, 2010, 4:01 amHistory Punk says:
This occurs in Baltimore after every snow storm. The system breaks down because the idiots who live in Baltimore will do stupid shit like dig out a spot in front of your driveway and deposit their stuff there without regard to your need to leave. Also, given Baltimore’s inability to behave itself, a lot of the stuff is stolen by random hoodlums. This creates friction as an innocent person takes what appears to be an open space only to face flat tires and smashed windshields later. Given Baltimore’s said inability to behave, it is not uncommon for someone to steal your bird bath, planter, or lawn furniture months in the summer and then try to use it to mark a parking spot when it snows.
February 11, 2010, 5:11 amTomG says:
Seizing and claiming a public space, backed by the power of thuggery – regardless of its majority-backing, doesn’t necessarily become a propery right does it? The fact that the
February 11, 2010, 6:08 amoriginal car-owner had to dig out doesn’t legitimize the claim to that space in any time
beyond occupying it, rather it’s just accepted practise as a means of ensuring stability
within a neighborhood’s domain – the sound assumption being that those parked before the
snowstorm live in the general vicinity, and therefore with the shrinking availability of
spots post-storm have a greater stake in being able to return to their domiciles over
mere visitors, etc.
Cheers, Tom
Arkady says:
In the Boston area where I used to live, parking space wars were a constant during the winter. Somerville was a particularly ferocious war zone. Boston now seems to be trying come to grips with the problem (I don’t know if the Somerville city government has adopted a similar strategy):
February 11, 2010, 6:43 amTomG says:
Somerville’s hilly streets, tight neighborhoods and high-level of renters lends itself to
February 11, 2010, 6:50 ama big problem during such storms of limiting parking. Not something to envy, for sure.
Cheers, Tom
thirdeblue says:
It sounds like Boston has the right idea. Codify the rule. Otherwise, what happens if I catch you vandalizing my car after I stole YOUR parking space? The law would be on my side. I guess I should be thankful my town lot is big enough to have a garage…then again I don’t live in D.C., Chicago, Boston, etc.
February 11, 2010, 7:52 amWallace Forman says:
I’ve heard that some people are in fact doing this in DC, though I have yet to see it myself.
February 11, 2010, 7:56 amdew says:
I’m not a Boston resident, but I thought the big change in recent years was not the new law, but the announcement by Boston’s mayor that after 2 days, city workers would go around and collect as trash any markers trying to reserve parking spaces. Too many people were trying to use the system to claim a parking space for weeks.
February 11, 2010, 8:01 amFrank G says:
I agree that enforcing a “property right” by defacing another’s property is thuggery, as Tom puts it, and not at all civilized. It sounds like something an anarchist would do. I live in Boston and I think that codifying the right is the correct way to do this in a society of laws.
February 11, 2010, 8:07 amMenachem Mendel says:
I live in the Riverdale section of the Bronx in NYC and I have never seen this happen after a snow storm. I say this as my wife and I are already thinking about how long we can last without moving our car. For many years people in this neighborhood “reserved” parking spots all of the time. The only one who still does this is…a judge.
February 11, 2010, 8:07 amChristopher Fotos says:
It’s illegal in Washington, DC to claim space you’ve dug out on public streets. I have no idea if that’s on the books in Chicago and everyone including police sensibly ignore it, but on at least one local TV news broadcast and one radio broadcast I heard here (DC), announcers were pointing this out.
February 11, 2010, 8:24 amWidmerpool says:
Maybe you should first address what “rights” are and where they come from. Oh, I forgot, they spring from the brow of Zeus and are Platonic forms that have ever existed, merely awaiting their discovery by law professors pontificating on snowstorms and parking lots.
February 11, 2010, 8:33 amDavid T says:
Isn’t it relevant to the claim that property rights emerge spontaneously that it doesn’t work this way in the great majority of snow cities? (And that it’s a source of tension that eventually leads to government intervention in some of the cities where it does, like Boston?)
February 11, 2010, 8:34 amOf Snowstorms and Privately Enforced Property Rights | Liberal Whoppers says:
[...] the original here: Of Snowstorms and Privately Enforced Property Rights [...]
February 11, 2010, 8:38 amCGordon says:
This also happens in Baltimore (without the informal enforcement). However, I think that scarcity alone is insufficient to explain why people feel as if they “own” the parking spot that they dug out. If scarcity alone was responsible, then one would see this at other times of scarce parking. Rather, it is scarcity combined with the notion that, if a person’s physical labor created the spot, it belongs to that person.
February 11, 2010, 8:39 amThom says:
The problem with this system is that it creates a shortage. I live in a part of Baltimore that has several small businesses. Parking spots are usually used by neighborhood residents at night and by neighborhood visitors during the day. A single parking spot may turn over several times in one day. After a snow fall, instead of open parking spaces neighborhood visitors find lawn furniture. Ultimately, many of them will choose to leave and local businesses suffer.
If only there were a way to save parking spots at night but leave them open during the day. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like such a system can naturally develop.
February 11, 2010, 8:46 amSnow Storms and Privately Enforced Property Rights « Daniel Joseph Smith says:
[...] Snow Storms and Privately Enforced Property Rights By Daniel J. Smith http://volokh.com/2010/02/11/of-snowstorms-and-privately-enforced-property-rights/ [...]
February 11, 2010, 8:56 amRicardo says:
In civilized society, as others have pointed out, these rights are much better off being codified. If you believe otherwise, go to Google and search for “murder parking spot” and read some of the stories that come up.
I wonder if a Boston jury would convict someone who was arrested for defacing the car of someone who stole “his” spot. Maybe not, but then private enforcement actions have no place in a civilized city. It’s nice to see the city admit there is a problem with the status quo.
February 11, 2010, 8:58 amBama 1L says:
The fundamental implication of the Chicago system is that labor creates an extraordinary, you might even say revolutionary, right in property. Next thing you know, workers will be insisting that they should own the means of production.
February 11, 2010, 9:00 amRicardo says:
Ah, but the right is transferable. If I dig my neighbor’s car out of the snow and demand she move her car so my friend can park in her spot, even Marx might think I went a bit too far…
February 11, 2010, 9:15 amAnthony says:
When I moved to Chicago in 2003, that rule was still sort of followed. Teh city at some point, however, announced it was goingt o impound any chairs left in the street to save spots, so by 2005 at least, it was no more.
Yea Mayor Daley!
February 11, 2010, 9:16 amAnthony says:
When I moved to Chicago in 2003, that rule was still sort of followed. The city at some point, however, announced it was goingt o impound any chairs left in the street to save spots, so by 2005 at least, it was no more.
Yea Mayor Daley!
February 11, 2010, 9:17 amJohn Neff says:
I recall one incident in Wisconsin where the owner of the space returned and found someone had taken his space. He and his neighbors then buried the car with snow. In my view the punishment fit the crime.
February 11, 2010, 9:22 amJohn Leo says:
Obviously, “snow melts faster along the cubs” is some sort of snide sports reference. Untrue, as well: snow and fog adhere to the Cubbies year round.
February 11, 2010, 9:42 amgasman says:
After the snow the value of 25 feet of curb space is markedly reduced because it has become unparkable. An individual adds value to that public space by removing the snow. Most people’s sense of fairness grants that person the right to use the fruits of their labors preferentially over other would be squatters. The system works when most people buy into the concept. Enforcement, though extra-judicial, is then still legitimate as a matter of consensus (though doubtful it would fly as a legal defence). The anecdote above is a perfect response to the parking transgressor. The original laborer, denied the fruits of his work, reclaims his efforts. The one who transgressed the local norms of curb rights then had to add his own labor to restore the value of the parking spot; only fair.
February 11, 2010, 9:44 amtd says:
?The fact that the
original car-owner had to dig out doesn’t legitimize the claim to that space in any time
beyond occupying it, rather it’s just accepted practise as a means of ensuring stability
within a neighborhood’s domain — the sound assumption being that those parked before thesnowstorm live in the general vicinity, and therefore with the shrinking availability of
spots post-storm have a greater stake in being able to return to their domiciles over
mere visitors, etc.
Cheers, Tom
Tell you what….
Spend an hour or so digging your car out to go to work and watch someone pull right in as soon as you leave THEN tell me how legitimate your claim is
February 11, 2010, 9:46 amNick says:
What are you talking about? I’m looking out the window of my Ravenswood apartment at lawn chairs on the street at this moment! Last year, Mayor Daley claimed that city workers would be removing items left in the street, but I’ve seen no evidence of any improvement.
For the record, the name of this annoying system is “Dibs.”
February 11, 2010, 9:49 amtd says:
Neither Daley or anyone else has the power to eradicate the dibs system. In some years with heavy snow Streets and San. have gone around in early spring and collected any junk still out in the street but the system has endured and probably always will.
February 11, 2010, 10:00 amneurodoc says:
Can I break in here to ask a timely snow-related question?
It’s supposed to be in the upper 30′s today, so should get some snow melt, but not nearly as much as I would like. As I look out the window, I see that the the sky is not overcast and the sun is shining brightly. If I were to cover some of our mounded snow piles with a black covering, e.g., black plastic trash bags, could I expect the snow to melt quicker than it would if not covered? Does the white snow reflect some of the incident light, and hence is there less warming/melting than if covered by a dark, non-reflectorized surface? I think it would increase the melt rate, but I’m not sure, since the incident light/energy would be the same. What’s the answer? (And if one could somehow angle large reflectorized surfaces so as to direct more light on to accumulated snow, would that be likely to do much, if anything?)
February 11, 2010, 10:02 amsnopercod says:
I guess one could call the folks with the snow shovels The Diggers
February 11, 2010, 10:05 amsnopercod says:
Neurodoc asks:
The answers are yes, and yes. Soot works well.
February 11, 2010, 10:09 amBob from Ohio says:
God I’m glad I don’t live in a city.
Its not property rights, its mob rule.
February 11, 2010, 10:10 amAF says:
Another ex-Boston resident. It’s hard to imagine that anyone who has lived in a neighborhood that practiced this would celebrate it. Tons of problems:
(1) If you didn’t have a spot when the snow hit, you can’t park.
(2) Sometimes for weeks
(3) People tend to claim large spots, or even two spots, so the overall number of spots is reduced.
(4) Lawn chairs (and trash) on the street are ugly and trashy.
(5) And ominous because of the implied threat of violence if you move one to park your car.
I live in Brooklyn now and nobody does this, at least in my neighborhood. Presumably because the government is very good at shoveling snow — and cleaning streets.
February 11, 2010, 10:12 amMalvolio says:
Why not? The original driver certainly “mixed his labor with the soil” in the Lockean sense and it is economically more efficient if he is rewarded with a temporary property-like monopoly.
Consider other “dibs” systems, like first-come-first-serve and saving-a-seat. They typically are enforced solely by social pressure, but create efficiency that would not otherwise exist.
And “thuggery”? Consider what would be done to you (by the majesty of the government) if instead of stealing a parking spot, you stole the whole car. Is that thuggery?
February 11, 2010, 10:15 amtd says:
The notion that this system is somehow supported by “thuggery” or “mob rule” is more than a little hyperbolic. People typically don’t poach spots out of respect for the labor that when into creating them. It’s an appeal to one’s fundamental sense of decency and it works quite well. Have a little more faith in your fellow beings folks….
February 11, 2010, 10:28 amjames says:
I learned early on that to live in a dense area like Somerville or Boston, my renting of a house demanded that a driveway spot or dedicated parking spot be part of the deal. I don’t care if I got a great Beacon Hill apt; it would be irrelevant if I was forced to park on the street.
February 11, 2010, 10:29 amAF says:
it is economically more efficient if he is rewarded with a temporary property-like monopoly.
Not really. You have to shovel out your car if you want to move it. And if you’re trying to park, you’re willing to shovel out a free space. Letting people keep their spaces after they leave doesn’t increase the amount of shoveling.
February 11, 2010, 10:30 amsardonic_sob says:
It would absolutely increase the melt rate, although black plastic trash bags are still pretty reflective. Black landscaping cloth would work better. Dispersed carbon dust or something would probably also help, although I wouldn’t recommend you do that as it would make a huge mess.
I’m not sure if it would increase it enough to make it worth the effort, though. Couldn’t hurt to try it. We have a black asphalt driveway: if I shovel it enough that some sunlight hits the asphalt, it will melt itself clean and dry in short order, even melting accumulated ice tracks quickly. If I don’t shovel it, it does not clear much faster than the surrounding lawn.
Any extra energy you deliver to the snow will melt it faster, but reflectors are pretty inefficient unless you focus them well, and then the focus point is so small you don’t get a lot of area melting. Again, couldn’t hurt, but probably wouldn’t help much. The black ground cover is probably a better bet.
February 11, 2010, 10:33 amgreat unknown says:
The most intriguing enforcement mechanism I’ve heard of occurred in Chicago, methinks in ’99. The creator of the parking space, upon returning from work, found the space occupied by a neighbor. He asked said neighbor politely to relinquish the fruits of his labor and was refused.
The digger-outer thereupon turned on his garden hose (in the sub-zero weather, with an extremely low wind-chill)and began depositing layers of ice over the entire occupying vehicle, until about half a foot of very hard ice had accumulated.
The removal of this ice would require extreme care, patience, and time in order to avoid damaging the vehicle. The vehicle was thus basically immobilized until the spring thaw.
Note that there was no actual physical damage to the vehicle.
Question: what crime was involved?
February 11, 2010, 10:39 amStealth says:
It doesn’t even work that way in the majority of Boston. I used to live in Allston-Brighton, and no one “saves” spaces there. I now live in Southie, which is notorious for this practice. In fact, the common link between neighborhoods that do this (Somerville, East Boston) seems to be history of mob activity. Which is not surprising, as many have said, it’s a system of cheap thuggery.
Your Lockean reward for digging your car out after snowfall is you get to drive your car. You don’t suddenly own public property.
And for you economic libertarians out there, consider how inefficient the distribution of a scarce resource becomes. Parking is free in Southie during the day and on the weekends, but requires a sticker on weeknights, which allows for a lot of turnover for visiting and shopping. Space-saving kills that. Or what happens when someone moves a space saver, parks briefly, leaves without restoring the space saver, and then you show up and park in what seems like a free space: you get your car vandalized.
Not to mention that the streets are full of rubbish.
February 11, 2010, 10:54 amWayneJarvis says:
I used to see this in DC (Tenleytown Area) after every significant snow storm, going back at least 10 years.
February 11, 2010, 11:07 ambyomtov says:
I think the WaPo is incorrect and there is no such law in Boston. It’s purely a matter of custom in some areas.
In fact, there have been attempts by the city government to stop it.
And while I appreciate the argument that someone who digs out a spot might have some right to it, I’m puzzled by the fact that some commenters, noyt ot mention McChesney, think that it’s OK for the “owner” to punish the interloper in any way he sees fit, including vandalizing the interloper’s car rather badly.
Maybe that’s what you get with “privately enforced property rights.” Is this where glorious libertarianism leads?
February 11, 2010, 11:10 amBuffalo Bill says:
I grew up in Buffalo, aka, the poster city of snow storms. I never heard of this bizarre rule until people from other cities told me about it. Let me get this straight – because you are somehow in the unique position of digging out your car, you rightfully feel entitled to the spot until the snow melts? And you can litter the street with your ugly furniture? That’s nonsense. Shoveling out the snow around your car is simply business as usual. Your neighbors have to do just like you. If you’re all in the same position, why would you feel that you have more rights than anyone else, on a public street no less. If I tried to pull that crap in Buffalo, my neighbors would laugh at me and then kick my lawn chair out of the road.
The other cities mentioned thus far that follow this informal rule aren’t exactly unfamiliar with heavy snow. They must have populations full of selfish pansies.
February 11, 2010, 11:11 amThe American Spectator : AmSpecBlog : Must-Reads says:
[...] Snowstorm parking and property rights that are not enforced by government (Volokh Conspiracy) [...]
February 11, 2010, 11:14 amBill Harshaw says:
My memory may be going, but I’ve lived in a townhouse cluster in Reston for a good while. It seems to me the pattern has almost always been: dig out your space in front of the townhouse, no need to put anything there because your right is recognized. But out on the side street leading to the cul-de-sac, many but not a majority of the people who dig out there put something out to assert their rights. So the custom is reinvented with each big snowstorm–all it takes is one person to do it and people imitate.
February 11, 2010, 11:15 amNathan says:
Living just outside of Baltimore, I concur with the people who have commented on the Baltimore phenomenon. The same occurs in our condo neighborhood in Anne Arundel County (MD). Neighbors are keeping their eyes out for people who park in spaces that others have already dug out. In this case, no one is using household goods to mark “their spot.” We all just seem to understand that if you dug your car out of 34 inches of snow, then that parking spot is yours simply by virtue of your labor, even if it’s a designated “visitor” parking spot.
In this sense, it reminds me of the homestead act. It’s yours because not only did you claim it (park in it), but you improved it (dug your car out of it).
February 11, 2010, 11:39 amFrank G says:
Malvolio said: “And ‘thuggery’? Consider what would be done to you (by the majesty of the government) if instead of stealing a parking spot, you stole the whole car. Is that thuggery?”
Of course not — there are laws about theft of property that we all agree to follow by participating in society.
td said: “The notion that this system is somehow supported by ‘thuggery’ or ‘mob rule’ is more than a little hyperbolic.”
I think it is thuggery to damage someone else’s car. Like the original article said, “Broken windows, scratched paint, deflated tires and other punishments often follow…”
byomtov said: “I’m puzzled by the fact that some commenters, noyt ot mention McChesney, think that it’s OK for the ‘owner’ to punish the interloper in any way he sees fit, including vandalizing the interloper’s car rather badly. Maybe that’s what you get with ‘privately enforced property rights.’ Is this where glorious libertarianism leads?”
What they are talking about is anarchism, not libertarianism.
February 11, 2010, 11:42 amtd says:
Think people. The little old lady two doors down saving the spot in front of her house that she shoveled hardly rises to the level of anarchy or thuggery. If I wanted to take her spot I like my chances quite a bit, and my experience of more than 20 years living all over Chicago where the practice is widespread has demonstrated that the actual incidents of vehicle damage are so low as to be practically non-existent. People are able to order their affairs quite nicely without the implied threat of violence.
February 11, 2010, 11:56 amDonP. says:
The standard response here in Chicago to the violation of the “Dibs” rule, use of someone else’s labor by taking their spot as they drive off to work, is one of two alternatives generally:
1. Let the air out of two tires, so a single spare won’t help you while leaving a note on the windshield explaining in colorful language, how long it took you to dig out your car, usually in front of your own home, what they did wrong and what might happen if they do it again.
2. (My personal favorite featured on the news about every other year or so) Re-pack the space, with the car in it with snow, aided by several friends/neighbors, then hose down the new snow drift with water on a sub zero day and let the car’s owner choose how to liberate the car by their own labors.
Mayor Daley has espoused the fairness of Dibs several times to the media so an appeal to royalty isn’t going to bear fruit.
At the same time there is little or no abuse of the “rules” as the snow melts. Streets and San picks up the old tubular metal dining set chairs sans seats and/or backs, old ladders and 5 gallon buckets, now set up on the parkway right of way, and whisk them off to the landfill
February 11, 2010, 11:58 amFrank G says:
td: I think it is clear that the “thuggery” we’re talking about is damaging someone else’s car. If “people are able to order their affairs quite nicely without the implied threat of violence” then there is obviously no problem.
February 11, 2010, 12:03 pmRoger the Shrubber says:
…through, we are told….
One of the problems with this “system of enforcing property rights” is that the severity of the punishment depends upon the whim and anger of the wronged individual. That sort of system is prone to excess, abuse, and unnecessary costs.
If the government enforced property rights in dug-out parking spaces — and protecting such rights wouldn’t be crazy, for the reasons mentioned — who can imagine that the fine for illegal parking would be a broken windshield, or the financial equivalent?
February 11, 2010, 12:08 pmMTM says:
This reminds me of the situation with surfing. In coastal areas, there is a large population of surfers compared to the number of desirable wave breaks. Consequently, the surfers who live near a wave break and regularly surf it claim the break as their personal property. New surfers who come in without invitation can expect scorn, ridicule, and even violence. This practice is called “Locals Only!”
February 11, 2010, 12:10 pmBuffalo Bill says:
Okay, then, Chicago and Boston are full of selfish wimps. What exactly is so amazing about digging your car of the snow? You and all your neighbors have to do the same thing. That does not mean you should have privileged spots on a public street to the exclusion of anyone else who just didn’t happen to have their car parked on the street when it was snowing. As pointed out, the personal reward for digging out your car is driving it. Anything beyond that is just lazy, attention-whorish behavior. “Oh, look at me and my crappy furniture! I picked up and used a shovel! Where’s my gold star?” Wimps. I can’t imagine having to drive around a city neighborhood, looking for a rare empty spot, only to see some chair sitting by the curb.
February 11, 2010, 12:12 pmbyomtov says:
Those in love with this system of property rights might want to read this article in today’s Boston Globe.
Some selections:
Maybe McChesney and others need to rethink their admiration for privately enforced property rights.
February 11, 2010, 12:23 pmThales says:
The Chicago practice (incidentally not followed in any neighborhood I’ve lived in in my five years here) sounds to me like a tacit reversion to the Lockean (and later, Marxist) labor theory of value. I believe we’ve generally moved beyond that–the streets are regulated city property, and parking spaces can be claimed only by actually parking (in some cases with the appropriate license/zone permit), not by “mixing your labor” with the snow/dumping your trash there. While there is a certain amount of free-riding on the initial excavator’s labor, why presume that that labor entitles the excavator to the spot ad infinitum (until the snow melts)? Hunt around like everyone else, or better yet walk or take the CTA.
February 11, 2010, 12:30 pmDavid Chesler says:
Buffalo Bill beat me too it. (It was obvious yesterday, because the forecast 2-inch-per-hour snowstorm never hit.)
Agreed with Stealth, but I think there is no cause-and-effect with The Mob and this practice, rather both arise in working class places. In Boston these are neighborhoods (or inner suburbs) with dense housing and few private driveways.
I can get my driveway (big enough for four cars), walkway and steps to bare pavement in half an hour. It doesn’t take “hours of back-breaking labor” to get a car out of a parking spot, nor to clear a space well enough that a car can get in. (I also carry a shovel in my trunk for that purpose, and in case I get stuck in snow or mud.) This was the last straw issue for me in leaving Somerville, the idea that you own your spot from the first snowfall until May. A neighbor parked in front of my driveway, rather than move a milk crate, stranding my wife and baby outside.
I suspect this is less of an issue in NYC than Mass for the same reason low-number and old-style license plates are a bigger issue here. NYS evens the playing field by issuing a new series of plates every few years, and NYC does with alternate-side-of-the-street parking, meaning everyone has to give up their space twice a week.
February 11, 2010, 12:43 pmtheobromophile says:
Some of the problem, at least in Boston, is that if Person A digs out his car, leaves lawn furniture there, then person B moves the furniture, parks in the space, and vacates the space without replacing the furniture, then Person C can see an open space, park in it, and be subject to the wrath of Person A.
Not true; this system reduces the value of the parking space. Before, it was a snow-covered parking space with a car that anyone could use; afterward, it is a space that exactly one individual can use and thus is worth absolutely nothing to everyone else.
By the way, I’m somewhat perplexed by this idea of treating the labour of snow-shoveling as if it grants a property right in public property. Aside from the fact that it is done for a private good (moving one’s car) and arguably reduces the benefit to the public (by ensuring that there are fewer already-scarce parking spaces), it grants a right in a space for a much longer time than could ever be justified by the labour.
Do the math. By the standards on the other thread, an hour of intense shoveling is worth about $25. If it takes a half-hour to shovel out the space, then the value to the street is about $15, which does not even get you a day’s worth of parking in downtown Boston, let alone exclusive use of a space for several days that happens to be near one’s home.
February 11, 2010, 12:53 pmDavid McCourt says:
I’ve lived in Chicago for 25 years and I’ve never seen this actually done anywhere. I think they use the same few photos from a neighborhood on the NW side (where Blagojevich’s father-in-law is Alderman) or from Daley’s old Bridgeport neighborhood, and pretend the whole city is doing this.
BTW, I usually complain about everything here, so I should fess up and say: Chicago handled the foot-plus of snow we got on Tuesday superbly. Yes, Chicago and superbly in the same sentence.
Despite the fact that 2/3 of the snow fell after 5:00 pm Tuesday night, by 7:15 am Wednesday, when I drove down into the Loop, all of the streets I saw and travelled on were completely clean — not cleared but still white, I mean, down to asphalt clean. The commute took 12 minutes, a few less than usual. The side streets were plowed and easily passable, but still a little white. The elementary school across the street from my house was open and receiving brats, as usual. Meanwhile, the folks who would direct our every intake and exhalation of breath wander aimlessly about the shuttered and deserted Capitol, like ants staggering around a broken anthill.
Hmmm. Maybe even Daley is looking over his shoulder, hearing footsteps. Last year he had snowplows operate only during business hours; this year they were up and at it all night. Voter discontent as a “stimulus” to incentivize even the most entrenched incumbent.
February 11, 2010, 1:05 pmBABH says:
Not sure if there’s a crime here, but it is a serious trespass. Depriving someone of the use of their car for several months will incur damages. Paying for a rental car at $40 a day adds up fast.
It’s neither funny nor clever to deliberately bury someone’s car in snow, though I suppose it does little harm (just an hour or two lost to digging it out). This trick with ice, however, is as bad or worse than outright vandalism.
February 11, 2010, 1:23 pmSuperSkeptic says:
As others point out, this is the locke’s labor theory. How is it also Marxist – I’m not seeing it? When did people decide Locke=Marx????
In Philadelphia, people have been killed over lawn-chair parking spots. Some in my family are notorious chair users, others resent the practice and would never ever do it. I will not hesitate to take your spot despite your chair – go ahead and shoot me.
February 11, 2010, 1:36 pmSuperSkeptic says:
But that is the catch. This is typically only done in the space you usually occupy directly outside of your own home, which, for better or worse, is where a lot of people already feel that they have a vague possessory/property right to park.
February 11, 2010, 1:42 pmStealth says:
Sorry, I meant to add in my original post, that the street parking in Southie may be harder to come by, and more desired than, say, West Roxbury (where I grew up), but Allston-Brighton is worse than both areas and I never saw space-saving when I lived there, which is what first suggested the mob correlation to me (which I don’t claim is causation, I just think the characteristics that lead a neighborhood to accept a pervasive mob presence intersect with this “we’ll enforce our own ideas of parking laws” attitude).
February 11, 2010, 2:00 pmneurodoc says:
Thanks. Just a few minutes ago my wife called home fron the grocery store to ask what she should buy and I told her to buy some black garbage bags so I would see what impact it would have to lay them out on some of our piled up snow. Now, I think I’ll try to find the black landscaping cloth you recommend (the netting stuff?) for its non-reflective property.
I’ve noticed the same things as you have about how quickly the snow melts on the asphalt, and even some of our darker concrete surfaces when some of the cover has been cleared. I always not what the weather report is for temperature after a snow storm figuring that is the determinant of how quickly the snow will be gone. But how clear the skies and bright the sun afterwards is a big factor, especially if one has cleared some of the surface over asphal. The ambient temperature is what its all about when the sun starts going down and one worries about the slush and melt freezing up, which can produce the greatest hazard.
February 11, 2010, 2:16 pmFrank G says:
Stealth said: “Sorry, I meant to add in my original post, that the street parking in Southie may be harder to come by, and more desired than, say, West Roxbury (where I grew up), but Allston-Brighton is worse than both areas and I never saw space-saving when I lived there”
Allston-Brighton has a big advantage as far as parking: because the Green Line runs right through and lots of college students live there, there are more residents who don’t have cars.
February 11, 2010, 2:17 pmyankee says:
It seems rather less than revolutionary to say that something resembling property rights can be created and enforced by private violence (or property damage) rather than by the government. Street gangs establish certain areas as their territory the same way.
February 11, 2010, 2:17 pmtd says:
Dunno. I’ve lived on the near west side, Rogers Park, Uptown, Wrigleyville, Ravenswood, Lincoln Square and now Portage Park and its been a common practice in all of those neighborhoods. I think parking scarcity is certainly a factor but I hardly find it to be an isolated practice.
February 11, 2010, 2:20 pmDavid McCourt says:
In Chicago there are generally no parking meters on residential streets, especially on those in the “outer boroughs” where this dibs stuff is happening.
On the other hand, our dim-witted Mayor and his poodle City Council sold off the income stream for the next 75 years from existing pay-to-park areas on business streets to some private equity firm, in exchange for a lump sum they can blow in the next few years, so I fully expect to see our sidewalks turned into privately operated toll roads the next time they need cash.
February 11, 2010, 2:23 pmDavid McCourt says:
td, I’ve never seen it in the Near North, Oldtown, Lincoln Park, Lakeview, or Hyde Park. To make a NYC analogy: they do it in Queens and parts of the Bronx, but not in “the city.”
February 11, 2010, 2:27 pmStealth says:
I used to work nights and drive home after 11pm, and I had some very long walks back to my apartment after upwards of 30 minutes driving around trying to find a parking space. And I lived right on the B line.
Anecdotal, I know, but I never have nearly that much trouble getting a space in Southie at night. Unless all the spaces are filled with rubbish.
February 11, 2010, 2:27 pmThales says:
Marx shared Locke’s view that what made property (indeed, everything) valuable was the amount of labor; people following Locke in the liberal tradition gradually abandoned this for the commodity/subjective theory of value. It’s pretty well-documented.
February 11, 2010, 2:29 pmDavid McCourt says:
“people following Locke in the liberal tradition gradually abandoned this for the commodity/subjective theory of value.”
Except in law firms.
February 11, 2010, 3:02 pmThales says:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value
Good point, McCourt–law firms have yet to move beyond this way of thinking en masse.
February 11, 2010, 3:08 pmKingsmill says:
Born and raised in Boston’s Dorchester (Neponset) neighborhood. The rule from time immemorial being, if you dig it out, you own the parking space until a melt.
Chairs, barrels etc. were sacrosanct markers for the claimed space. The system worked flawlessly until the late 1980′s when the traditional ethnic neighborhoods were invaded by outsiders, that is young professional Americans.
These newcomers did not show the respect for the tried and true ways. Many lessons had to be learned, but the newcomers eventually adapted.
February 11, 2010, 3:41 pmJeremyKidd says:
Initial disclosure: I’ve never lived anywhere the “dibs” system is in place.
Now, just a thought: to those who argue that digging out your car entitles you only to the right to drive your car, nothing more, would the analysis change if you were away from your home for the snowstorm and the resulting piles of snow left over by the plowing?
In a lot of areas, the snow plows never make it to the edge of the road, possibly due to the placement of other people’s cars. However, assume that your normal space in front of your home was empty when the snow starts falling because you’re out of town. When you return, you find a pile of snow 4 feet high, reaching 4-5 feet out into the road. If, at this point, you are willing to grab your snow shovel and dig yourself a parking space, do you have some limited property right to it? You have unarguably increased the total parking spaces in your neighborhood by precisely the amount of space you intended to use. Why haven’t you “earned” the exclusive right to park there until the snow melts, especially if no one else was ever going to shovel all the snow?
On a side note, under the right circumstances (very slippery roads), you could theoretically dig out just enough for the length of your car, then push it sideways into the spot (if the wheels are spinning on a low-friction surface, a car is very easy to push sideways). That way, only someone with a smart car would be able to fit into the spot, anyway.
February 11, 2010, 4:01 pmDavid McCourt says:
In Chicago we have a city ordinance requiring property owners to promptly shovel the sidewalk in front of their house or building. I assume that other cities have similar laws.
Does my shoveling the sidewalk entitle me to block it off with lawn chairs for my own exclusive use? I don’t think so.
February 11, 2010, 4:51 pmBuffalo Bill says:
@JeremyKidd
1. No. I would find some place else to park or start shoveling. That all comes with the territory of living in a place where it happens to snow. You’re no more unique for having to do so than the guy who had to dig his car out.
2. I disagree. You haven’t increased the total amount of spaces of available on the street if you’re the only one who gets to use it. In fact, you’ve decreased it because you’ve denied other persons a spot even when you are not using it. You’re also assuming that no one else would have shoveled it out.
This is all really subterfuge so people can enjoy the one time out of the year they get to have a parking spot, when scarcity makes such spots difficult to acquire in a densely-populated city. I get it, I lived in a city where street parking was all bumper-to-bumper, and driving around and around for a spot is annoying. Well it’d be more annoying if these spots were not blocked off by cars, whose owners obviously legitimately need them, but by chairs, whose owners obviously don’t need the spots at that moment.
February 11, 2010, 5:02 pmThales says:
I agree with Buffalo Bill: if it’s a good system (and it may be) that’s in conflict with the law on the books (space is yours only as long as you occupy it with your actual car), it should just be codified and publicized. And even if there’s tacit agreement among area residents as to how to modify, you know, the rules imposed by the actual law, private enforcement through vandalism or threats (as opposed to persuasion) is completely unacceptable.
February 11, 2010, 6:19 pmSuperSkeptic says:
Thales and D McC,
I dunno, I’m no economist, but it seems like not the same thing. From the ‘pedia:
That seems novel, and not Lockean.
February 11, 2010, 8:40 pmDavid McCourt says:
I agree that Marx is no Locke — who doesn’t? Marx has a lock on the title: totalitarian’s favorite political economist, while Locke made one of his several marks by being the theorist who inspired much of small “l” liberalism.
February 11, 2010, 10:50 pmRicardo says:
As a non-lawyer, that sounds like a tort at least. A crime? I suppose it depends on how the vandalism statute is worded.
February 12, 2010, 12:52 amJoe Markowitz says:
What is not mentioned in this article is the wastefulness of this private property system. After people leave for work, leaving their kitchen chairs to mark their “private” spaces, others have to drive up and down the streets looking in vain for a place to park, without fear of having their car damaged, because they find that even though there appear to be plenty of available parking spaces, all of them have been “claimed” by the person who dug them out first. Clearly a more socialistic allocation of resources would be more efficient for those innocently hunting for a place to park on a supposedly public street. And I used to live in Chicago, so I know what I am talking about.
February 12, 2010, 12:58 amDavid McCourt says:
This is not a private property system; it’s a bunch of squatters seizing what the authorities are too indolent to protect. A “more socialistic allocation” would have the Mayor’s aides assigning the spaces, based on City’s Hall’s top-down five-year plan for parking, after reserving the best spaces for members of the Democratic party and other influential nomenclatura and friends of the pols — kind of the way city contracts, zoning changes, admission to the state university, etc., are done here now.
February 12, 2010, 1:50 amJoe Markowitz says:
When I say a more socialistic allocation, I am not talking about government allocating parking spaces. I am merely saying that if I clear a parking space for my car, I do it for myself first of course, but then when I leave the space, I have no further claim on it, and I am pleased that others have the benefit of my work, just as when I later drive down the street and see an empty space that someone else cleared, I will be pleased that they have done the same for me. Granted there is what might be called a free rider problem with that kind of altruistic solution, but it avoids the waste of the kitchen chair regime, which creates a lot of underutilized “private” spaces that only serve to increase the scarcity of parking resources.
February 12, 2010, 2:33 amTomG says:
Here’s a funny one to end the thread – saw a guy park his sportscar in one of two available
spots with meters. But when he got out and saw the non-chosen spot still had time on it,
got back in the car and moved it over. I chuckled at how much he evidently unknowingly
spent starting his car up again – wow.
Final take: Coercive practises not sanctioned by statutes is some form of thuggery equivalent
to mob rule – no matter what. And public spaces are just that – no matter what’s done to
them. An ice cream vendor here had just put up a $10k permanent stand that he thought was
verbally okayed by the public parks commission – whose new boss is saying “no can do” …
and he’s out all that money. If you happen to spend time and energy removing snow from
a buried car, it doesn’t truly give you any claims beyond getting in your car and eating yellow snow – and when you drive away, sans statutory claims, you relinquish that spot to
any other registered auto.
Cheers, Tom
February 12, 2010, 5:34 amPorkchop says:
I saw three instances of this on 42nd Street, NW, between Yuma & Albemarle (behind Janney Elementary) on Tuesday.
February 12, 2010, 7:12 amDJR says:
I agree this is a perfectly legitimate way to create property rights, which is why early yesterday morning I shoveled out the only exit from a wealthy neighborhood and collected a $50 toll for anyone who wished to cross “my” entrance. I held a can of spraypaint in case anyone tried to drive through without complying.
Also, I can’t believe the thread went this far without a mention of Pierson v. Post. I suppose Pierson should have just threatened to kill Post’s dog instead of suing.
February 12, 2010, 9:19 amDJR says:
I don’t know about a crime, but at the very least it was a trespass to chattels. Stories like this remind me of watching three year olds play. The canons of MINE! and SEAT SAVED! and I WAS USING THAT (thing that child clearly was not using at the time)! have no place in adult society.
February 12, 2010, 9:29 amDavid Chesler says:
Allston-Brighton also has a more transient population (because of those same students and recent grads.) There’s a different dynamic. (Somerville has lots of recent grads, but also a stable residential base.)
(OTOH, when my car was towed for blocking a driveway [it wasn't] in Cambridge 30 years ago, when I reported it to my roommates they said “I bet it was that same ____ who was complaining that we moved her trash barrel to park it after we borrowed it.”)
February 12, 2010, 11:42 amRoger the Shrubber says:
Sounds like the voice-over to a Mad Max film.
February 12, 2010, 1:27 pmStephen Lathrop says:
This kind of thinking has a way of metastasizing. Every beach town in Massachusetts, mine included, seems to think it’s smart to deny visitors access to the beach by controlling all the parking that could conceivably be used by beachgoers. Locals get special permits. This, of course, creates parking shortages in places that would never have them otherwise.
My town takes it the next step. We have two classes of permits. One kind you can get if you own a house close to the beach, and it entitles you to park anywhere in town. The other kind you get if you can’t walk to the beach from your house, and you can’t use that to access street parking near the beach. You have to park in a few tiny designated town lots that are often full.
I think everyone who pays taxes to build and maintain roads ought to have an equal right to use them, everywhere and always.
February 13, 2010, 1:46 amGabriel McCall says:
This “traditional view” is obvious nonsense, a cart before a horse. Do proponents of this view imagine that prelegal societies had no concept of property rights? Governments are instituted by ungoverned communities in order to make the defense of their natural property rights more convenient and orderly; this is not at all the same thing as saying that those rights do not exist until there is a government to define and protect them.
February 14, 2010, 2:05 pmHonest Engine says:
Update: this practice is catching on in DC, with limited effect, though. I have heard of several instances of this, including a pregnant neighbor of mine who, because she is pregnant and her husband was away on business, paid someone to shovel her a spot. When she blocked it out so that she could return, someone ruthlessly took the spot!
February 16, 2010, 2:22 pmPeople don’t seem to care much about the labor you invest in your parking spot. In fact, some people tried to park in the spot I was shoveling — while I was shoveling it!
The snow has now contributed to a chronic shortage on spots because it is so hard you basically cannot shovel new spots and the weather is staying cold enough to keep the massive piles of snow around.
sony8877 says:
this is a pretty stupid example..roads are publicly owned, so claiming a part of what is owned by everyone and enforcing that with violence is an example of private property rights at work then that is wrong, whether roads should be publically owned is a good topic for discussion though..and the fact that they are pubically owned in my opinion is part of the problem
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June 3, 2010, 11:17 am