I believe that when Karl Friedrich Benz of Germany developed the world's first carriage-style three-wheeled automobile and obtained the world's first automobile invention patent on January 29, 1886, he could never have imagined that one day this invention, of which he was so proud, would actually lose out in terms of price to those inconspicuous parking spaces seen everywhere.

　　But that is the reality. If you casually search for the words "sky-high parking space," you will see all kinds of related information, such as "Shanghai sky-high parking space 1 million yuan," "Nanjing sky-high parking space 800,000 yuan," and "Guangzhou Zhujiang New Town parking space quoted at 700,000 yuan." A saying has even become popular online: "Now when girls look for a partner, they don't ask whether he has a car, but whether he has a parking space."

　　Ask: Must you buy a parking space before buying a car?

　　It was originally an abandoned minivan. It had reached "retirement" age, and even its motor could not start, yet someone still spent 5,000 yuan to buy it.

　　The new owner is a resident of a certain high-end residential community and quite wealthy. In addition to this newly acquired minivan, he also owns four luxury cars, including a Ferrari [Weibo] worth 4 million yuan and an Audi S8 worth 2 million yuan. Becoming part of the same family as these luxury cars should have made the minivan very proud. However, it soon discovered with disappointment that after buying it and bringing it home, its owner parked it in a parking space in the community every day to hold the space for the Ferrari sports car. Once the Ferrari arrived, it would be pushed aside.

　　This is a true story that happened in the Zuo'an Garden residential community in Hangzhou. The minivan owner complained that because parking spaces in the community are scarce and cannot be bought even with money, he had no choice but to resort to this expedient: buying a minivan specifically to occupy a parking space.

　　Do not think this has nothing to do with you. On July 18, 2013, at the third meeting of the Standing Committee of the 12th Beijing Municipal Committee of the CPPCC, it was proposed to strive to achieve zero growth or even negative growth in the number of passenger cars in the central city within 5 to 10 years, to study and formulate policies to levy a first-registration fee for passenger cars, and to gradually realize "parking in place," making a legal parking space a basic prerequisite for purchasing a passenger car and raising the threshold for passenger car ownership.

　　In other words, once this policy is implemented, anyone who wants to buy a car in the future will first have to buy a parking space. After the news spread, controversy continued, with most voices opposing it. Some netizens asked in response: "If I park in my own courtyard in a suburban village, does that count as having a legal parking space?" Many shrewd real estate agents, however, ignored these questions and took the opportunity to promote "now is the time to invest in parking spaces." Their reason was that the number of vehicles will only continue to increase, while parking spaces are limited, so prices will certainly rise in the future. Jiang Hua, deputy director of China Gold News, even claimed that, following the real estate industry, the parking space industry will become a pillar of local fiscal revenue.

　　However, is that really the case?