Autonomous Cars are not the Solution. The Urban Sprawl Case

Last week I saw a tweet about a McKinsey report on autonomous vehicles, in the report urban sprawl is shown as a benefit of autonomous vehicles:

Since workers can perform their jobs from an autonomous car, they could more easily move farther away from the office, which, in turn, could attract more people to rural areas and suburbs.

🤯 To be honest, if I can work from anywhere, why should I work from the car? In that case, better to work from home, no? Who would like to spend more time commuting, and working at the same time?

Autonomous electric cars have been pitched as part of the solution for reducing energy consumption and decarbonize mobility. However, we already have big part of the solution in our cities: 🚶‍♀️pedestrian and 🚲 bicycle infrastructure, and 🚉 public transportation (indeed, one can work in trains 😉). These public infrastructures, combined with dense cities will do more to address climate change, and build more human cities than electric cars.

The key part is to build (or retrofit) dense cities. And when I talk about density I’m not proposing to have skyscrapers in every block, more about 4-5 stories buildings with mixed uses that facilitate the creation and adoption of 15-minutes cities, in which it is possible to walk or bike to get around, instead of having to travel inside a car, no matter how smart they may be.