Self-Driving cars, (AKA Autonomous vehicles) have enormous and potentially revolutionizing implications on our work, leisure and economic sectors of our lives. But their effects on urban development and planning are quite disquieting. These types of vehicles can obviate the need for well planned urbanism and actually make poor planning and sprawl more common than ever before.

This is not a doom and gloom dystopian scenario. Self-Driving cars are imminent and Uber and Volvo’s recent partnership in developing these types of vehicles should be a huge signal that this type of technology is coming sooner than you expect. There is no denying the cost savings in autonomous technology. If you could get robots to replace human drivers, you don’t have to spend nearly as much on upkeep. Robots don’t need to get a minimum wage, they don’t take breaks, they work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year (minus maintenance time), they don’t get tired or sleepy either. They also are probably better drivers than humans, as a bonus.

The effect on business is potentially enormous, but what about the other major area that is affected by autonomy: housing. Because Self-driving cars will become so cheap and so ubiquitous, they could result in the biggest changes in housing patterns since the development of the interstate highway system.

This is possible because autonomous vehicles eliminate one of the biggest downsides of living in a sprawled out suburb: commuting. Commuting long distances is an activity that most people who live in sprawl grudgingly deal with in order to live where they do. It’s a necessary evil that must be endured to enjoy a suburban life. But what if instead of enduring a commute, you could relax and kick back while the machine drives for you. You could instead use that time in the car to do the types of activities that previously had to wait to do until you got home. That hour you spend in the car wouldn’t be a big deal if you could watch tv in your car instead. Mass adoption of self driving would make commuting a non-factor in peoples lives, leading many to jump in full force into suburban and even exurban life.

Self-driving cars would encourage sprawl even more than it is encouraged now. They could undo the years of progress that planners have made in showing that sprawl doesn’t have to be inevitable. If autonomous vehicles gain traction, then we may see the exacerbation of the problems that we see today: over-reliance on vehicles which leads to higher pollution and a sedentary lifestyle, loss of land to sprawl, which leads to ecosystem and habitat destruction, and also less access to services (such as public transport) that are simply not feasible in sprawled out locations.

But that’s just one of a many possible scenarios. It’s up to us to make sure that autonomous vehicles don’t lead to detrimental changes that could last for decades or longer.