Can driverless cars reshape L.A. and other cities?

Way too early to know, though researchers are beginning to think about the possibilities, which are considerable and not that far off (driverless cars could become commonplace in the next decade). For a new mayor who has been playing the innovation/technology cards, isn't this the chance to be at the forefront of something truly transformative? Of course just because a few academics say it will happen doesn't mean it will. Back in the 1950s, airline executives predicted that passenger planes would be flying at 1,500 miles per hour by the 1970s - roughly three times their current max. But unlike those pipe dreams, driverless technology is here and it's real. Someone is going to make hay out of it - if this is such a center of innovation, why not here? From the NYT:

Imagine a city where you don't drive in loops looking for a parking spot because your car drops you off and scoots off to some location to wait, sort of like taxi holding pens at airports. Or maybe it is picked up by a robotic minder and carted off with other vehicles, like a row of shopping carts. Inner-city parking lots could become parks. Traffic lights could be less common because hidden sensors in cars and streets coordinate traffic. And, yes, parking tickets could become a rarity since cars would be smart enough to know where they are not supposed to be.

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But to some, this promise -- or overpromise as the case may be -- sounds familiar. "The future city is not going to be a congestion-free environment. That same prediction was made that cars would free cities from the congestion of horses on the street," said Bryant Walker Smith, a fellow at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School and a member of the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford. "You have to build the sewer system to accommodate the breaks during the Super Bowl; it won't be as pretty as we're envisioning."