Social Impact of New Technologies

Urban design professor Nico Larco talks with Bill Resnick about  new technologies such as autonomous vehicles (self-driving cars and buses) and e-commerce (buying things on line rather than going to stores). Unless these technologies are managed in the light of equity and social justice, they increase inequality and the marginalization of the non-rich. Thus both will cost jobs and both will create blight in poor neighborhoods, partly because they reduce public resources. On the other side they could be implemented to create more beautiful and interesting cities with much more convenient transit. But if their introduction is governed primarily by market forces, things will surely get worse.

Photo Credit: NPR