Flying cars can eliminate the need for cities, and many of the problems that cities create: -crime and other social problems arising from lack of community -hugely expensive housing driven by high land prices -wasted lives commuting -environmental issues from high population densities -expensive and bad environment for children, (cities are huge population sinks where people cannot afford to have children, unlike rural areas) -massive expense of transport infrastructure
Electric VTOL aircraft can be extremely efficient and cheap and not too noisy if they are sized to carry one person (the majority of all needed trips). Here is a nice example that is being developed at the moment: http://www.jobyaviation.com/animation.php 100miles in an hour point to point with <$3 in electricity and no roads from an aircraft that would cost <$10k in mass production (with a concept that really can work). This form of transportation would be far cheaper than cars, buses or trains, and would have better range for lower cost than electric cars. Automated aircraft control is a much easier problem to solve than automated car driving owing to consistency of air and lack of obstacles. There are many other similar concepts. High powered brushless motors and batteries + GPS and cheap digital communications and computing have really opened up tremendous opportunities in this area, I expect to see a breakthrough product in next 10 years. On 5 April 2012 03:32, Eric Walker <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 6:24 AM, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]>wrote: > > The solution to the traffic problem is to stop going places. Reduce >> commuting distances with full screen video telecommuting from home and from >> satellite offices. >> > > Agreed. Make cities beautiful and livable and compact enough for people > to get around by foot and use mass transit. This is the pattern of > European cities. Many American cities had the misfortune of expanding when > the automobile was becoming common and people were infatuated with the > freedom of movement they allow. People don't appear to have appreciated > how much strip malls, traffic, automobile pollution and urban sprawl would > detract from their quality of life. > > It's possible to increase urban population density without getting rid of > cars altogether. They can be kept in compact garages near the outskirts of > a city. Flying cars would only add to the noise and clutter. > > Eric > >
