North America wasn't always built for the Car, in a few fading but still living memories, North America as it was before the bulldozer and highways can be vaguely recollected. Progress, is an American national obsession it seems, a kind of manifest destiny into the future. Cities and towns were torn down, smashed apart to create a new future of highways, suburbs and a new kind of personal freedom that could only be found behind a steering wheel.
(Check out this instagram if you want to see what i’m talking about)
In creating this future, the car moved from a luxury to a necessity for basic functioning in society. All across American towns and cities of walkable compact neighbourhoods were erased and replaced with new landscapes traversable almost exclusively by car. Outcrops of suburbs only accessible by cars sprang up all across North America. In the rush to build a world compatible with the freedom of the automobile, many North Americans lost t...
North America wasn't always built for the Car, in a few fading but still living memories, North America as it was before the bulldozer and highways can be vaguely recollected. Progress, is an American national obsession it seems, a kind of manifest destiny into the future. Cities and towns were torn down, smashed apart to create a new future of highways, suburbs and a new kind of personal freedom that could only be found behind a steering wheel.
(Check out this instagram if you want to see what i’m talking about)
In creating this future, the car moved from a luxury to a necessity for basic functioning in society. All across American towns and cities of walkable compact neighbourhoods were erased and replaced with new landscapes traversable almost exclusively by car. Outcrops of suburbs only accessible by cars sprang up all across North America. In the rush to build a world compatible with the freedom of the automobile, many North Americans lost the freedom to not own a car instead.
The Boomer generation of North America, arguably the most car obsessed, have lived their entire lives within this car-centric mode. Basic tasks like going to work, buying groceries, meeting friends, even going to a park for a walk, require the use of a car. To many the thought of walking to the grocery store is unthinkable.
And they're not not wrong. Walking to a grocery store is unthinkable when the world is built for the car and hostile to those outside of the car.
So what do you do when driving becomes something you can no longer do?
Enter the world of the autonomous vehicle.Tesla has Robotaxi/Cybercab, Google has Waymo, Amazon has Zoox among others. Each in their own way attempting to provide a safe, autonomous taxi solution. The benefits of driverless taxis are clear. Massive scale, massive cost savings, theoretically safer than a human driver all whilst providing a better customer experience. No awkward interactions, private cab, customizable preferences (music, ...
