Unfortunately mandatory parking minimums are written into the zoning codes of most American cities, leading to the surfeit of parking in lots of places. Undoing this will take no small amount of work.
Another software developer refusing to work in or understand an existing working system and instead asking for "the big rewrite", which assuredly will get finished on time, with all of the features of the existing system and none of the problems.
"The big rewrite" could be adopting the system of a different country that has more desirable outcomes. I only know a little about zoning, but from what I've heard Japanese zoning is rather simple and doesn't seem to produce endless sprawl.