Driverless Cars May Redraw the Map of Suburbia

Two experts say that as more Americans head to the suburbs, the new suburban wave will be driven by tech, including private transportation methods like ridesharing and driverless cars.

Automated vehicle advocates say that the cost would be far less than today's current stock of manned cars. Joel Kotkin and Alan M. Berger say in Fortune that should this be the case, door-to-door mobility would ease the cost of living for many people who can't afford their own car, and fortify independent lifestyles for the elderly and disabled. They add that the environmental impact would be significant, "With much less redundant paving and more undisturbed land, autonomous suburbs will expand parks, bike trails and farms, and reduce forest fragmentation."

Suburbs have largely been dismissed by environmentalists and urban planners as bad for the planet. Rather than fight the tide and treat suburbanization as an evil to be squeezed out, perhaps a better approach would be to modify the suburban form in ways that address its most glaring environmental weakness: dependence on gas-powered automobiles.

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