[kingu]

The automatic parking sounds great -- until you reflect that, in an emergency such as, oh, a giant urban fire or power failure, you can't retrieve your car to load it up with valuables and get the hell out of Dodge City. You're stuck, screwed. Good luck.

You're joking, I hope? If there is a major incident in a dense urban area, you're stuck without a vehicle anyway due to the immediate gridlock that accompanies the event.

Thing is, if there's a large urban fire, the fire suppression systems built into such automated garages would mean it much more likely that your car would be there at the end of the emergency.

[Right Wing Assault]

What happens when there is a mechanical failure during morning or afternoon rush hour? Things break.

[lentulusgracchus]

Good points, and they all go into the scales against urban living, as opposed to suburban living, or de-densified cities. So low-density cities require more streets, more mileage of every type of infrastructure? Waaaah! Those nasty people are demanding services (never mind that they pay for them!)......how am I gonna widen my margins? What will happen to my spreads? Waaaaah!

Like I said, businessmen and plutocrats design cities for their own ends -- and then go live out in the 'burbs to escape the consequences they conjure for others.