Wired explains why cars that can park themselves are going to be so awesome, whether or not they are allowed to cruise the public streets and highways just yet.

Parking is a problem that engineers reckon self-driving cars can solve. Send the robot to find a space, after it drops you off at your destination. Summon it back later when you’re ready to leave.

The fatal accident in Arizona this week, in which an Uber autonomous test vehicle killed a pedestrian pushing a bike across the street, highlights some of the dangers of robo-driving at regular speeds. But low-speed movement, with scanners running on full, in a fixed area, is a much safer way to apply the tech. Building owners could have high resolution maps made of their parking lots, geo-fence them, and designate them as no-human zones, so cars can do their thing. It’ll be just like dropping your car at a valet stand, except you don’t have to dig around for singles. More cars will fit into each lot: Because doors don’t need to be opened, the vehicles can squeeze tightly together.

Being a tech magazine and not an urban planning magazine, they don’t realize the significance of the short phrase “More cars will fit into each lot”. Because most cars are parked most of the time, and they take up such enormous amounts of space, this could fundamentally change the land use in cities over time by opening up enormous amounts of space to other uses. And that is assuming people own the same number of cars they do now. As the incentive to own a private vehicle decreases, more of the fleet will be in motion at any given time and less will be parked, accelerating the virtuous cycle of reduced car demand even more. What kind of uses could be better than parking? Well, any – such as housing, commercial space, parks (the kind with soil and plants), natural areas, solar panels. Now might be a good time for cities and suburbs to start thinking about what they want to do with all this public real estate other than just letting it sit there generating heat, stormwater and pollution. As a start, installing separated bike lanes might not seem such a daunting problem, and just opening up some existing parking as temporary loading zones for deliveries, contractors, the elderly and disabled would be an enormous help in many cities.