Why walk when you can park twice?

Visiting an old friend near Boston yesterday, I couldn't find the restaurant where we were meeting. So I pull into a the large parking lot of a bookstore and ask directions inside.

The gal behind the counter says, "Oh, it's in the next plaza over," and begins to give elaborate directions: "Pull out of our lot, take a left, go down about 100 yards, and take another left, then..."

"Could I walk there?" I interject.

She looks a bit stunned; the idea is apparently novel. But she recovers: "Yeah, actually it's right through the bushes on the side of our building."

In the U.S., anyone seen walking between strip malls (rather than driving) is assumed to be either homeless or bonkers, or both. Walking even short distances between plazas or across lots can be risky, since drivers don't expect to encounter pedestrians there.

Meanwhile, a recent study I ran across at Treehugger suggests that America has a vast parking glut:

In a midsize Midwestern county [researchers] found that parking spaces outnumbered resident drivers 3-to-1 and resident families 11-to-1. The total parking area was larger than 1,000 football fields, covering more than two square miles.

That's something to keep in mind the next time a politician or developer in your area insists that an old building or greenspace be bulldozed because it's needed for more parking.