Autonomous Cars Are About To End Carcatecture – Is Your Community Planning for this Incredible Opportunity?

"Self-driving cars are as much of a paradigm shift as the invention of the telephone, and we all need to get prepared for the ride of our lives.”

Roy Amara, the late president of the Institute for the Future

We may well be on the verge of evolving a new kind of highly sustainable, near-zero carbon form, one linked by technology, and economically (and increasingly culturally) self-sufficient.

Autonomous cars will remotely park in solar-charged sheds off-site, to be called to the home through handheld devices, thus eliminating the need for garages and driveways. With safer vehicles that can see and react to situations better, roadways will be designed with much less paving to mitigate storm water runoff and flooding. Homes will have drone delivery ports built in, greatly reducing the number of daily household trips and congestion.

With much less redundant paving and more undisturbed land, autonomous suburbs will expand parks, bike trails and farms, and reduce forest fragmentation. Some of the next generation of suburbs will be anchored by main street districts, some of them restored, while others will be built from scratch, as we have seen in places like the Woodlands outside Houston and Valencia north of Los Angeles.

by Joel Kotkin

https://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2018/02/21/autonomous-cars-are-about-to-transform-the-suburbs/#2148334c7e62