I wonder if this will result in the hollowing out of the American downtown similar to the 60s and suburban white flight. It just started to feel like the American inner urban core was coming back, density was increasing, more funding to transit.
One of the great tragedies of American society in the 20th century (in my opinion) was a focus on building everything around the car, the suburb, and the commute. Producing well paid office workers disconnected from any sort of community or the issues around them. Everything is a drive away, no one walks anywhere, feelings of isolation and segregation.
This is a huge question and I don't hear a lot of people asking it. What is the future for cities? How will this change suburbs? How can we create optimal communities?
I think it goes hand-in-hand with the coming loss of the car as a personal device and its transformation into "individual transit" as opposed to "mass transit". In the future, when you can use an app to get an autonomous vehicle to take you where you want to go, communities will restructure. Parking lots and garages will go away, opening up a huge amount of real estate.
I wouldn't mind starting a sort of "virtual salon" to talk about these larger questions. It's fascinating.
Eh, in-city autonomous driving is pretty much looking to be decades out at this point. And tons of people I know are fleeing cities during this and don't really expect to go back to regularly being in an office for the foreseeable future.
It will, because people will buy farther out. One of the major drivers of the urban core, density and transit was how bad traffic can be. You want to live closer to work, which is usually downtown. Now you want pretty much live on the outskirts or the sticks. Without the commute, nothing stopping cities from becoming extremely diffuse.
One of the great tragedies of American society in the 20th century (in my opinion) was a focus on building everything around the car, the suburb, and the commute. Producing well paid office workers disconnected from any sort of community or the issues around them. Everything is a drive away, no one walks anywhere, feelings of isolation and segregation.