I’ve often complained about the 21st century’s complete lack of flying cars, but I recently had an interesting pondering: How would flying cars effect our cities?

When highways were first introduced it allowed the middle and upper class to move out of the cities and still work their city jobs. This brought on the collapse of many urban communities due to the lower class being left behind as the suburbs florished.

To help fight urban decay many cities have implemented public transportation and loft districts to try to bring the middle and upper class back to dead areas of the city. This has been shown to work quite well and many cities have seen signs of communities becoming revitalized due to increased pedestrian traffic (meaning more opportunities to patron urban businesses) brought on by suburban dwellers catching the public tram to spend a fun day in the city.

How would affordable flying vehicles change our cities? A flying vehicle would seem to allow people to live even farther away from their jobs, perhaps leading to a complete decentralization of where the middle and upper classes live. The empty “boonie” areas that no one would live in before may become the new hot places to live. Paved concrete and highways would no longer have an effect on where new homes would be constructed.

Would this bring on the decline of the suburbs as well as the inner cities? It may, but the declining need to build super-highways could also serve to turn once abondoned communities into new hot spots for entertainment and the like.

Still, the development of middle to upper class communities without a need of roads would truly leave those unable to afford a flying verhicle in the lurch. They would grow even more isolated from the roadless rich, not even being able to drive to their locations.

The solution to prevent the complete isolation of the poor in a flying vehicle future may once again lay in public trasportation. If cars can fly, why not busses? The presence of flying public transportation would do well to prevent the complete abandonment of the cities and subburbs.

Either way, I want flying cars.

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