> Building a parking lot isn't cheap

It's cheaper than an actual building...

> and it does make the land more useful.

...and less useful than one, too.

Usefulness comes in many guises. Think of a parking structure as an enzyme to catalyze transactions with people hailing from a further distance away. Without that space, the exchange can't happen.

The drive (no pun intended) here is to make that an unnecessary or at least facilitated through different means.

You want people hailing from further distances via public transit and rail, and you want the majority of the businesses in an area servicing a highly dense, local community that can all walk there within 10-15 minutes.

This enzyme must be removed, the American Urban Body reworked to reject suburban thinking like this.

Trivially cheap compared to a 10 story apartment building.

If your goal is to put up an apartment building, it's cheaper to rip up asphalt than to demolish a multi-level concrete and steel parking structure.

It is comparatively cheap and comparatively less useful

Or if you don't want your neighborhood more crowded, it's actually more useful.

nimby get out