> most US cities have made it illegal to build anything without gobs of parking attached
No they haven't. Places with "gobs of parking" are suburban Walmarts. Pretty much every city is super short on parking.
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Parking is "super short" because there is never enough supply of something that is free. When you make something free, you induce demand for it.
For almost everywhere in LA country (where I live), it is illegal to have a store, coffee shop, gym, restaurant, laundry mat or almost anything else without attached parking. There are pockets where they've allowed parking reform (like Old Pasadena) and beautiful, walkable neighborhoods spring up. But these are rare exceptions.
I just find it genuinely perplexing. A 1-hour commute in LA is absolutely unremarkable. That's 500 hours a year! We have horrible air pollution even though we're right by the ocean. The weather is perfect and yet people need to go drive someplace to be able to walk around in it. Like why do so many people out here think the status quo is so great?
> Parking is "super short" because there is never enough supply of something that is free. When you make something free, you induce demand for it.
But city parking is very expensive and still often fills up, and the free parking at suburban Walmarts usually has plenty of open spots.
Expensive is a relative term, but if the parking fills up, then it’s probably not market pricing. When market pricing is used, there will generally be a few open spots. Because if day after day there is more demand for something than there is supply, suppliers will increase the cost and continue to do so until the market reaches equilibrium.