Probably not too many of you would shed a tear if you were told there might be less parking lots in the future. It would take the perfect storm of legislation and innovation, but that’s what Conor Friedersdorf is talking about, if this whole driverless car thing takes off, over at the Atlantic:
For the Apple store or organic farmer’s market or shopping mall or any other place where people spend more than a few minutes, it would make sense to pull up to the entrance, hop out, and send your car… where exactly? Back home, or to circle the block, or a half-mile away to a giant parking structure or field — there are all sorts of possibilities. What wouldn’t make sense is the current practice of dedicating lots of prime-real estate to parking, whether of the parallel or angled variety.
Car co-ops and bigger and bigger sharing networks are all part of the utopia that even includes a car that stops off at the grocery store to have pre-ordered items placed in its trunk before it picks you up from work. Of course, he imagines, it could all go terribly wrong too:
… freed from the need to drive, cars might be outfitted like mini-living rooms with lots of entertainment options and comforts — mini-bars even! — such that folks would prefer riding in their own car even more than today.
Sadly, I see the later as more plausible. I think Wall-E said it best:
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