YOU PARK IN THIS SPACE AND I’LL TURN YOUR CAR INTO A POPSICLE

2/3/11

There is a proud tradition in Chicago, and in other parts of the country, which some refer to as “dibs.” According to this tradition, someone who digs a parking spot out of the snow, sometimes, but not always, directly in front of his or her house, is entitled, by virtue of his or her effort, to exclusive use of that space for a limited period of time, usually a few days or until the snow melts to the point at which parking is no longer inhibited by the depth of the snow. The digger may claim those legitimate rights by placing lawn chairs, saw horses, old mops or brooms, or other bits of household detritus in that spot.

People are quite serious about defending their dibsian rights. Tales, perhaps, but probably not, apocryphal, tell of people who have removed the claims staking geegaws and parked in a space that someone else spent hours digging out returning to their cars to find them keyed, more seriously damaged, or frozen and rendered inaccessible by fulsome application of a garden hose to their vehicle in sub-freezing weather. Thus justice is served.

Some argue that the tradition of dibs is outrageous. This small and generally shy (especially at this time of the year) minority, many of whom live in high rise condos with parking garages, argue that no one owns the public streets and that therefore no one can claim a space. These self-styled arbiters of justice see no problem, apparently, with their parking their BMWs and Volvos in spaces someone else cleared for his or her own Chevy. So much for such self-proclaimed guardians’ of public virtue protestations of their sympathy for the “working person;” such sympathy apparently ends when it conflicts when their comforts or sense of entitlement, but I digress.

Not only do the proponents of dibs have the better of the moral end of this argument; they also can turn the dazzling urbanites’ high falutin’ property rights against them. I think it was Art Laffer who came up with the free market property rights argument in favor of dibs. I’m not sure it was Laffer, but I am sure it wasn’t I, but I wish I had come up with this argument because it is so beautiful in its simplicity, so clearly logical, and so in line with the free market philosophy to which I have adhered most of my life, as has, obviously, Art Laffer. This argument says that if a city (say, Chicago) wants to get the streets cleared quickly, the city ought to encourage and even enforce dibs. If one can claim a cleared space, then one would have an incentive to clear the space, thus spaces, and, collectively (bad adverb in this case, I know), the street get cleared. But if dibs are routinely ignored, then no one has an incentive to clear spaces, spaces don’t get cleared, and the streets remain snowbound. Note that, with encouraged or enforced dibs, the spaces get cleared not by the government but by private citizens acting in their own self-interest. Thus, encouragement or enforcement of dibs is an elegant free market way of resurrecting parking spaces after a heavy snow eliminates them with minimal expenditure of public funds.

Yes, it is a wonderful thing when neighbors help neighbors during snowfalls. Despite straining my back to the points of rather intense pain, I thoroughly enjoyed digging out from yesterday’s snowfall because it gave all of us neighbors a chance to help each other out, to dig out each other’s driveways and walkways, and to foster a sense of camaraderie and community spirit that some think doesn’t exist in the suburbs, where I now live. Not only did we have a good time, but the whole subdivision was up and operational by mid-afternoon because neighbors helped neighbors. And I am sure that many of the dibsters in the city were also out there helping their neighbors clear walks, alleys, and parking spaces to which those neighbors could stake a claim. But if we have to rely exclusively on the goodwill of others to get things done, few things will get done. Better to have a system, like dibs, which helps the process along by marrying private self-interest with the public good.