Donald Curran Shoup (August 24, 1938 – February 6, 2025) was an American engineer and professor in urban planning. He was a research professor of urban planning at University of California, Los Angeles and a noted Georgist economist. His 2005 book The High Cost of Free Parking identifies the negative repercussions of off-street parking requirements and relies heavily on 'Georgist' insights about optimal land use and rent distribution. In 2015, the American Planning Association awarded Shoup the "National Planning Excellence Award for a Planning Pioneer."
Life and career
Shoup was born in Long Beach, California, on August 24, 1938. When he was two years old, his family moved to Hawaii for his father's work in the U.S. Navy. He arrived in New Haven, Connecticut, in the late 1950s at the peak of New Haven Mayor Richard C. Lee's efforts to build major parking garages and improve city traffic flow with the Oak Street Connector and other urban renewal projects.
He received undergraduate degrees from Yale College in electrical engineering and economics, and a doctorate in economics from...