I was also unconvinced by that hand-wavy analysis. Basically, "parking is negative value because I don't like it, look at this graph I made up."

In the US most places that aren't already highly urbanized are based on car culture. The culture isn't going to magically shift to transit if you take away parking, people will just complain and go elsewhere.

The article also completely abandons this angle later when it acknowledges that parking can be financially acceptable for the land owners. It also acknowledges that municipally mandated parking isn't the issue either.

How many parcels in e.g. downtown Syracuse are just vacant? That represents a much lower value than surface parking.

I definitely agree that parking in garages and integrated into buildings is much better but if you're unsatisfied with your downtown area I don't think targeting parking lots is the place to start. The real question is why don't people believe they can get more value out of it with further development? It's a little chicken-and-egg but you have to make the downtown a desirable place for those investments.