Markets in Everything: Wales Edition

Katherine Mangu-Ward | February 23, 2007

Eighteen-year-old Wales resident Tom Page has created a market in parking at youcanpark.com. People with unused parking spaces and driveways can post rates and availability online for desperate commuters in their area to use during the day. The BBC reports:

Residents advertise their space on the site for free, but pay a commission. Users then search for a parking place in their chosen area, apply and, once approved, can rent it.

Mr Page said: "We fully manage it like a letting [rental] company does. We collect payment and pay the person who owns the space."

One customer touts parking spaces as a great way to build equity--a practice already common in France:

"In France, the car space business is very big, especially for young people....If you don't have a lots of money and you can't buy a house, you buy a parking space in a central location. The increase in equity you can make on a car space is much higher."

 Via Fark

Comments

Pedant|2.23.07 @ 1:37PM|#

What on earth is a "Wales resident"? I live in the US - does that make me an "America resident"? By the way, the fellow lives in Bristol, which is in England.

|2.23.07 @ 1:53PM|#

How long before those nanny assholes in Britain move to ban it?

A.B.|2.23.07 @ 2:00PM|#

We used to have something like this in Chicago. If you went downtown for a Cubs or Bears game enterprising young market-oriented types would let you part on driveways of nearby houses for less than the price of parking in a garage. Sometimes they even got the homeowners permission before they took your money.

Dan T.|2.23.07 @ 2:09PM|#

Sounds like a pretty good idea, except no doubt there will be cases where people (understandably) object to their residential neighborhoods serving as commercial parking lots.

|2.23.07 @ 2:20PM|#

Sometimes they even got the homeowners permission before they took your money.

Priceless!

|2.23.07 @ 2:23PM|#

In my suburb, parking is rather tight (no overnight parking on streets, and hour limits on daytime non-metered parking in residential areas)

Many people have extra parking spaces on their lots and they rent them monthly to people who usually live in apartments nearby. It's usually cheaper than renting an extra spot from your landlord or getting an overnight / 24 hr parking permit from the Town Hall.

|2.23.07 @ 2:33PM|#

where people (understandably) object to their residential neighborhoods serving as commercial parking lots.

Waah, waah!

Dan T.|2.23.07 @ 2:46PM|#

where people (understandably) object to their residential neighborhoods serving as commercial parking lots.

Waah, waah!

But who will be whining when the residents persuade their town council to ban the practice?

Mike Laursen|2.23.07 @ 3:15PM|#

Wow! I was trying to come up with how they will turn this in a Bad Thing that has to be regulated or banned. And right away Dan T. came up with it!

|2.23.07 @ 4:10PM|#

Wales: too many redundant consonants and not enough parking spaces.

Rhywun|2.23.07 @ 4:13PM|#

Wales: too many redundant consonants

Oh, not so. You just don't know how to pronounce them. Also, some of the letters that look like consonants are actually vowels...

|2.23.07 @ 4:14PM|#

[Insert joke set-up here]

"What valet parking?"

|2.23.07 @ 4:47PM|#

Oh, not so. You just don't know how to pronounce them. Also, some of the letters that look like consonants are actually vowels...

Ha! Maybe the Welsh should go back to Oggam script. The Latin alphabet doesn't seem to be doing the job...

|2.23.07 @ 4:49PM|#

If you went downtown for a Cubs or Bears game enterprising young market-oriented types would let you part on driveways of nearby houses for less than the price of parking in a garage.

Happens at the South Side Irish parade, too.

Rhywun|2.23.07 @ 5:04PM|#

Maybe the Welsh should go back to Oggam script.

Nah. Just remember that w and y are always vowels, and you're set. You can practice it on my name: rhee-oo-een.