| Saying that modern car-centered suburbia did not occur until the post-war highway construction and mainstream car adoption is rather tautological. By that time suburbs had been around for over 70 years. Here's an American writing in 1898 about the world-wide suburbanization movement, at https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/25119003.pdf : "The really remarkable growth in London is found in the outer ring, or the suburbs. And this is the important fact to be emphasized - the recent rise of the suburbs in all the countries of the Western world ... The decentralizing movement has also extended to the suburbs, especially in those cities like Boston where the electric trolley has been so highly exploited. Even in the case of New York, whose suburban railway system is very poor, there has been a growth of the suburban towns and cities far in advance of New York's growth. ... In Victoria and South Australia, more than two-fifths of the entire population dwell in the capital cities ... the large agglomerations in Australia are ... scattered over a large area... in Sydney it is the ambition of every workingman to own his own cottage. It is pretty safe to say that in the next century, the other city populations of the civilized world will be following in the foot steps of the Australian cities. The bicycle and the trolley car will be of essential aid to the middle-sized cities, but alone are incapable of relieving the congestion of the great cities. More rapid transit is urgently needed for metropolitan populations and is the only solution of their problem that in the long run will prove efficacious. The fact is recognized in England, where in 1883 Parliament passed the Cheap Trains Act, subsidizing the rail ways by about $2,000,000 annually, in the shape of a remission of passenger taxes, in order to provide workingmen's trains between London and the suburbs. The subject demands attention in all great cities." Take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Adelaide_suburbs and see that a lot of the Adelaide suburbs were founded in the 1800s. My other comments concern noise (which will likely cause cities to restrict where flying cars can operate), the distance to vertiports (which eats up time from Marchetti’s Constant), the ability to carry luggage (eg, to a golfing resort) and children, restrictions of airspace (including by having more flying cars) and the need for repairs (will you need two flying cars for a remote island life?). Those have nothing to do with the idea that flying cars can replace all car use, but rather to raise some objections that seem relevant to the market story presented. There are three public heliports in Manhattan. In 20 years, when flying cars are more mature, how many people in Manhattan do you expect will be using them daily, for what purposes, and how many vertiports do you expect will be needed? |