Great article! As an urbanite who prefers human-powered transit, and an enthusiastic bus rider when weather requires it, I 100% appreciate the perspective you outlined.

But the future of self-driving electric cars you paint is not the one I see. The Tesla parking lot is a perfect example of what I expect to be eradicated by driverless cars. In my neighborhood, idle parked cars line every street, bumper-to-bumper. Imagine instead of buying a car, your subscribe to a network of driverless cars (or buses!) to be called on demand. Streets would have twice the capacity. Or in the case of a tunneled-town, we could double above-ground density by eliminating surface roads, making cities even more walkable.

It’s naïve to think cars are going anywhere. High-speed rail is great for city-to-city transportation but ignores the needs of local commuters. While I love my bus rides, but too many people are willing to spend a few more dollars each day to travel comfortably in a car. If they’re going to drive anyway, I would rather they not do it while tired, drunk, on the phone, operating a fossil-fuel combustion engine, only to then abandon it on the street or fill city blocks of parking lots between uses.

Does Musk have a perfect solution that caters to all economic tiers? Nope. But IMO he’s doing more to move us closer to the dream of sustainable mega-cities than anyone else.