Hop, Skip, Go: How the Mobility Revolution is Transforming Our Lives

Rossant, founder of the nonprofit NewCities Foundation, and Baker, a former technology journalist, take a fascinating survey of the many disruptions, beyond ridesharing apps, coming for the transportation industry. During “the next stage of human mobility,” they predict, innovators will seek to address traffic, waste, and environmental issues, not to mention the countless hours commuters waste in transit. The authors focus on the major cities, such as Los Angeles, Dubai, and Shanghai, where the need for saner traffic is most urgently felt. In addition to famous tech founders and their pet projects—Elon Musk’s Boring Company tunneling startup and Jeff Bezos’s Amazon delivery drones—Rossant and Baker check in on 3D-printed cars in the L.A. suburb of Torrance, bikes crafted out of repurposed industrial machinery in Vancouver, and navigation AIs in Shanghai. They also speak to Sonja Heikkilä, who developed the transportation app MaaS (mobility as a service) in an attempt to solve Helsinki’s pressing transit problems. Looking ahead to a future in which owning a car might be as anachronistic as playing music on a CD player, Rossant and Baker’s study convincingly forecasts how new technologies might “change our cities, our economies, and the fabric of our lives.” Agent: James Levine, Levine Greenberg Rostan. (Nov.)