Automated Vehicles – Disrupting The Traditional City

In 1894, the Times of London sounded the alarm about the great urban crisis of the day, predicting that "... in 50 years, every street in London will be buried under nine feet of manure." Four years later, the world's first international urban planning conference was convened in New York City, as delegates desperately tried to come up with some solutions. It ended in failure.

By 1917, New York City's last horsedrawn trolley was out of operation, as motorized vehicles quickly became the main source of carriage and transportation. By 1944, 50 years after the Times of London's dire warning, automobiles had already begun to fundamentally alter the nature and shape of North American cities. In the coming decades, the ubiquity of the family car would fuel the spread of suburbs, leading to today's sprawling megacities and "greater urban areas." Today's cities are fundamentally shaped by and inextricably linked with the automobile, as is the regulation of cities.