The article is about a very specific scenario: dense metropolitan city centers. It has always been the case in those areas that many people do not own cars, and yes you can get by very well by using public transport, taxis, walking/cycling, and the occasional rental when you do need to drive somewhere.
Pretty much everywhere else, cars are almost essential to modern life.
It's a little more than that. The internet reduces peoples need to go somewhere, buy stuff, and take it home even outside of cities. This is killing the suburban shopping mall, but it also significantly reduces peoples need to move around with a pile of stuff. Because public transport is mostly focused on moving people and not their stuff this makes public transport more useful to more people. Even if they don’t give up both their cars living in a one car household is far easier nowadays.
PS: It's not just about doing less shopping trips; if you only get 1 bag of stuff it's easy to carry around. If you’re getting a massive load of junk you really want to drop it off in your car.
The internet has largely removed my desire for physical goods. It's probably partially my age, but I suspect it's somewhat true for younger people as well. I'd just as soon read an in-depth review on a new piece of tech rather than buy it and get it configured before putting it on the shelf not to be used.
Desktops with their huge CRT's have consolidated into laptops. Your phone consolidates an alarm clock, a landline, a camera, a torch and a calculator. You don't really need a TV or radio. Modern tech is slowly reducing the amount of clutter needed for daily life.
It's even a little more than that. The Internet is now making it so that I can hire someone else to deal with moving stuff for me. For example: https://getdolly.com/ and https://www.instacart.com/
It's getting to the point where, if you live in a dense city, owning a car isn't just a thing you can live without. It's becoming one of the more obnoxious possible ways to get things done.
I live in Waltham Forest, London, which is mentioned in the article. I am delighted not to have to own a car.
We're sort of on the edge of the naturally car-free zone: end of the Victoria Line tube one way, boundless greenery and suburban shopping barns the other. So yeah, lotta people here do have cars.
Well, the end of the radio age hasn't finished the radio. I guess this can be said of about any technology - it is not finished, just not anymore the center of the attention.
To put it succinctly: cars are useful, but also dangerous, and require huge amounts of land to run and store in any quantity. After discovering that trying to rebuild cities with room to run and store large amounts of cars, we've discovered many negative side effects, and so have stopped trying to build cities in such a fashion.
I would agree. It is definetely not the end of the "car age"
Cars will live on for many years but as self-driving cars come into play, owning a car wont be a need any more.
For your day to day activities you can take public transport and bike to work.
For weekends that you want to do a trip with family/friends you will simply "hire" a car that will take you where you want to go.
I am excited about this future. Cars slowly being phased out for a more accessible city for the people. Taking back the roads from cars for bicycles and walking.
It's the end of the age of car-centric design in large metropolitan areas, but not of the car or "car age" by any stretch of the imagination.