Paid parking is killing cities. Paid parking incentivises development investors to invest in an outdated infrastructure that does not produce anything, takes a lot of city centre space, while extorting productive people
In Portugal most parking is free as an extension of the businesses, that the owners have to consider. You can just leave home and not think about it while going about your business
In the UK most parking is paid, and there are hundreds of companies to manage parking lots, check the cars, to issue fines, to go after people that don't pay, a 60£ fine that is now 600£ because you have to pay the salary of the goons putting a wheel lock in your car, everyone in UK has paid a car park fine, it is a whole business in itself that is basically just a capitalist cancer