COPYRIGHT

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      First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019

      FIRST EDITION

      © John Rossant and Stephen Baker 2019

      Cover design by Sim Greenaway © HarperCollinsPublishers 2019

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      A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

      John Rossant and Stephen Baker assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work

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      Source ISBN: 9780008309480

      Ebook Edition © October 2019 ISBN: 9780008309497

      Version 2019-10-23

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       DEDICATION

       To the young ones,

       Alex Rossant, Sloane Wright, and Louise Craver,

       who will have so many different choices

       when it comes to moving around.

       CONTENTS

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Dedication

       Introduction

       1: Hit Enter to Print Car

       2: LA: Crawling to Topanga Canyon

       3: 800 Electric Horses

       4: Jurassic Detroit

       5: Helsinki: Weaving Magic Carpet Apps

       6: In the Company of Hawks and Nightcrawlers

       7: Dubai: Grasping for the Cutting Edge

       8: Idiot Savants at the Wheel

       9: Shanghai: Petri Dish on the Huangpu

       10: Squadrons of Pack Drones

       Conclusion: Minutes, Meters, and Moolah

       Acknowledgments

       Notes

       List of Searchable Terms

       Praise for Hop, Skip, Go

       About the Authors

       Also by Stephen Baker

       About the Publisher

       INTRODUCTION

      Where have you been your whole life? Think of all the places: home, school, work, restaurants, the gym. Maybe Carnival in Rio, a cheap hotel in Paris? All those memories and routines involved moving your body from one place to another. Movement is such a constant in our lives that it’s easy to overlook. It occupies hours of each day and devours a good share of our money. It’s central to our existence, nearly on a par with eating. If we didn’t move, we’d never see each other. Now, as we enter the third decade of the twenty-first century, the ways we move are changing dramatically.

      At about this point, as we describe this book, people often interrupt and say, “Driverless cars, right?”

      What’s coming is more than just one instance of robotic navigation, and much bigger. You can see it gearing up around the world. Overwhelmed by traffic and wheezing from smog, cities are confronting the limits of the century-old automobile economy and taking steps to rein it in. Many are extending greenways and building bike lanes. Some, like Madrid, are starting to ban cars altogether from city centers. Others are charging fees to drive in congested areas while presiding over a proliferation of bike- and car-shares. At the same time, a technology explosion is unleashing a new generation of networked machines and services. And yes, it’s true, the automobile, step-by-step, is turning into a robot.

      The car we all know, the gas-gulping machine we drive, has had quite a century. Our urban geography has molded itself to its demands. Its networks of highways gave birth to new suburbs, while developers carved out vast downtown acreages for parking lots. Cities grew into planned preserves for countless herds of these four-wheeled creatures, Serengetis for cars and trucks. That automotive monoculture spread around the world, from Los Angeles and Caracas to Moscow and, more recently, Beijing and New Delhi. The car reshaped the surface of the planet and poisoned the air above.