The world is about to be transformed by self-driving cars. Once these self-directed vehicles are introduced, they will quickly take over — road accidents will become intolerable when we discover just how often they happen, how deadly they are, and how frequently they are caused by human error. Expect our roads to be almost entirely free of human-driven vehicles within 15 years.
In this new world, there will be no need for enormous amounts of space for parking, and so huge amounts of real estate will open up, often in especially desirable locations. driverless cars can drive closer to each other, and so lanes will get smaller, which means that sidewalks will get wider. This will lead to a lot more street business, including food trucks, buskers, and tabletop salesmen, making the experience of shopping in a town a lot more diverse and interesting, and providing a lot more opportunities for people to go into business for themselves with relatively low overhead.
Without so much space set aside for concrete parking lots and paves roads, there will be an increased focus on civil beauty, with an explosion of urban flower and vegetable gardens, as well as public parks. The cities of the future will be better places without the car.