The "self driving cars" are the future prediction is probably correct, but it makes me so very sad. A self driving centric city is still a car centric city, and it's not really a city. It's just a sprawling space with moving adult strollers.

The optimist in me says there will be less parking which opens up land for housing and 3rd spaces. I also think that the self driving cars will eventually create self driving private bus lanes. And then cities will probably realize they can just build a permanent line there.

One interesting thought experiment to do: what happens if private car ownership went away tomorrow and everyone took Waymos instead? Let's assume there's enough waymos to handle the load. It would be mayhem. There would be waymo depots everywhere and there would be an outbound traffic spike from the depots on their way to pick people up in the morning. It's simply not scalable unless you shared routes. So I don't think car ownership is going away. I think people will own waymos. At that point you might as well buy 5 waymos so that each kid can be "independent."

I'm optimistic, but the future of the American city is grim (with some outliers who are embracing urbanism)