The growing masses of 'the poor' (formerly 'the working class') will have no transport, no jobs, and no hope. What wasn't taken from them by automation and AI will be taken by mostly-futile attempts to fix the climate.
British cities are not so nice to cycle in, and a lot of that infrastructure is hard to retro fit
These days (in the UK) the thieves have battery-powered angle grinders to defeat locks. A fancy new bike, especially a costly e-bike, won't last long in many places. And nobody is going to confront a thief armed with an angle grinder.
A battered old bike may last longer, but you still often see the carcasses of bike frames locked to railings where wheels and other parts have been stolen, and the rest of the bike was then abandoned. It certainly doesn't encourage the adoption of cycling, even by those who can cope with the hills, weather, and traffic.
I could buy a new electric cargo bike every year for the amount I spent on my car when I had one.
Cities just to have an obvious purpose, but can successful cities be sustained in an era where so much retail has moved online, and jobs are being automated or done remotely, and the extreme costs of living or doing business in a city centre are getting harder to justify.
I work from home but I love that last night my wife and I took a pleasant 15 minute walk through pretty streets to get to a wine bar and hang out.
Tokyo has had a housing surplus since 1968 despite a continually increasing urban population.
Housing affordability isn’t really an issue of city versus suburbs, it’s an issue of zoning and urban planning.
While it may be tragic to everyone involved, it does warm the heart to think that a cataclysm will be fair in that it will exterminate poor and billionaire alike.