So, like transit?
I will likely have my own personal self-driving vehicle. And I'm 100% sure that there'll be an upmarket segment with slightly more expensive cars that are kept more clean than the rest.
The self-driving car ”utopia” (or rather moderate improvement) very much hinges on the space savings on roadways and parking, to increase utilization, reduce congestion and allow dead space to be reclaimed. If people think like you (no value judgment, I suspect this might be the future norm), then you’ll see almost no change to the urban landscape as a whole. It’ll continue to be a one-flesh-body-per-2-tonne vehicle utilization, a ~5:1 provisioning of parking spaces, 25-50% of urban areas being roadways+parking, and a double-digit productivity loss from commuting and running simple errands.
That leaves you with an individual comfort improvement (allowing you to be on your phone while in the car) for a premium price, and increased surveillance tech on personal vehicles. (And, to be fair, it can still be huge for drunk driving deaths, access for elderly & disabled, once costs come down). Overall, very mediocre imo.
Controversial take: the US has painted itself into a corner, where by ignoring the well being of people in their own communities, they need so many workarounds to prevent space sharing between the ~2-3 social groups where intermingling means friction and fear. There are very real logistical challenges to a gated community segmentation of the physical world. This paints the resistance to public transit in a different light: it’s not so much about being public, but rather being shared with strangers, especially of different social cohorts. It also explains the sacred status of air travel which mainly has been left outside the debate: imo because of the higher socio-economic average clientele. Now that cost has come down and low-cost airlines like Spirit share the same airports, the friction has come there as well.
My personal vehicle can fuck off to a distant parking lot way more conveniently than me taking a shuttle there.
The US is far ahead of the curve, it has not fucked itself like Europe with insane housing density. This is clearly seen in the birth rates. Compare the US, Europe, and Japan.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09680...
This is being solved (to the chagrin of urbanists) by companies moving out of downtown high rises and into suburban office parks. Remote work has helped as well.
> It is so crazy to me the lengths people will go to justify car culture over walkability and public transit.
You aren’t going to make the entirety of the LA metro area walkable and connected by public transit. Sure you can make a neighborhood a little more walkable and you can connect some denser areas with light rail but that just doesn’t solve the problem that you seem to have issue with.
All of these were actual situations I encountered in NYC. The only reasons I don’t move somewhere car dependent are because I enjoy cycling and I hate parking even more than sharing space with the dregs of society.
Before anyone gets on their high horse about taking care of the lowest members of society, I pay enough taxes to completely absolve myself of any additional responsibility to them (NYC spends around 60000/annum/homeless person).
The issue is not space sharing between social groups. I'm happy to share space with people of any ethnicity, skin color, sexual orientation, political leanings, dress code, economic status, educational level or "social cohorts". The issue is civil, polite people being forced to share space with rude, entitled, violent individuals.