Parking Madness Final Four: Camden vs. Fort Worth

We started this Parking Madness tournament with 16 soulless parking craters from California to New Jersey, and you’ve narrowed it down to the Final Four: Camden, Fort Worth, Syracuse, and the very aptly-named Parkersburg, West Virginia.

Today and tomorrow your votes will determine who gets a shot at the title and Streetsblog’s coveted Golden Crater.

Camden

Joseph Russell nominated this eyesore on Camden’s waterfront, which crushed the competition from Mobile in round one and Detroit in round two. Here’s how Russell explains the problem:

My entry: the neighborhood-killing parking lots on the waterfront in Camden, New Jersey. Years ago, this area housed factories for companies like RCA. Ever since, they’ve been used as parking lots for the equally neighborhood-deadening L3 Building, which is essentially a fortress separating employees from the rest of the city. Residents of the Cooper-Grant neighborhood are trying to rebuild a viable neighborhood here, and the negative effects of these huge parking lots stand directly in the way of that goal.

Ugly. But ugly enough to deserve a trip to the finals? Let’s see how Fort Worth stacks up.

Fort Worth

This entry, which came from an anonymous commenter, steamrolled over Boise and Tampa in earlier rounds. Here’s how our tipster explained this area of Fort Worth:

Right next to downtown. Featuring not one, not two, but THREE 6-7 story parking garages spanning five city blocks. That would be fine, but there are another eight full blocks with surface parking lots (three of them are riverfront property) with an additional five blocks partially taken by surface parking. Oh, and there’s on street parking as well. Overkill… The area is centered on E 2nd St & Grove St, Fort Worth, TX.

A remarkably even match, if you ask us. Vote below to decide which one deserves a shot at everlasting shame.