When Chicago pawned its parking meters
Planet Money
- Published
- December 12, 2025
- Duration
- 30:56
- Summary source
- description
- Last updated
- May 31, 2026
Discusses In 2008, Chicago’s budget was in a bad place. The city needed money. One way to raise money was to i…
Summary
In 2008, Chicago’s budget was in a bad place. The city needed money. One way to raise money was to increase property taxes, but what politician wants to do that? So instead, Mayor Richard M. Daley’s administration looked around at the resources the city had, and thought, ‘Any of this worth anything?’ They opted to lease out the city’s metered parking syst…
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Show notes
In 2008, Chicago’s budget was in a bad place. The city needed money. One way to raise money was to increase property taxes, but what politician wants to do that? So instead, Mayor Richard M. Daley’s administration looked around at the resources the city had, and thought, ‘Any of this worth anything?’ They opted to lease out the city’s metered parking system — to privatize all 36,000 of its parking meters. The plan: have private companies bid on operating the meters, modernizing the system, and k