I have two recent articles in mind.

The first is from TechCrunch titled, Baby We Won’t Drive Our Cars: the future of automotive transportation. The title begs to be sung to the melody of “Drive My Car” by the Beatles.

The second is from IMN Horizon Scanner, Nic Nelson, titled, Dethroning the King of Los Angeles: the ebb of car culture.

The two together are great fodder for beginning to imagine the city of 2035.

What if, as Nic’s find suggests, major cities like Los Angeles reduce! the number of traffic lanes. What if we were to degrade the capacity of our highways in order to allow the growth of pedestrian and bicycle traffic?

Or, what if the automated car, as suggested in the Techcrunch article, dominates the future?

Imagine how an automated car (that is not dependent on fuel) might change our future landscape. Here are some thoughts. (It should go without saying for regular readers, these are not predictions…the future cannot be predicted. These are ideas to get the imagination going and to increase your personal and organization mental elasticity.)

• Gas Stations go away.
• Parking lots become unnecessary.
• Homes no longer need garages.
• Highways shrink.
• Better air quality.
• Cities reorganize into multiple micro-hubs.
• More bicycles.
• A thinner, healthier population.
• Fewer highway deaths.
• Fewer ambulances and highway patrol.
• Highway adjacent property loses its value.

And the question is, of course, and what else happens because these things happen? What if, rather than a dark and dystopian “Blade Runner” style urban future, the future were greener, healthier, brighter? What are other possibilities for 2035 if we found ways to change the way we all get around?

Enjoy.