Sometimes you are glad that they were wrong and sometimes you are sad that they were not right.
Automobiles will start to decline almost as soon as the last shot is fired in World War II. The name of Igor Sikorsky will be as well known as Henry Ford's, for his helicopter will all but replace the horseless carriage as the new means of popular transportation. Instead of a car in every garage, there will be a helicopter.... These 'copters' will be so safe and will cost so little to produce that small models will be made for teenage youngsters. These tiny 'copters, when school lets out, will fill the sky as the bicycles of our youth filled the prewar roads.
You really want your typical driver flying around in a helicopter?
I think this is the reason we don't have flying cars. We could build them. We could do a lot of things. But nobody really wants them, given the danger they would pose. (Energy constraints are probably another reason, but secondary. There are flying car prototypes that get MPG numbers comparable to SUVs.)
Any flying car system I can conceive of would be vastly safer than the bloodbath caused by non-flying cars.
And yes, we want them. Many times faster than ground transport, safely usable by any person young or old, no congestion, frees up the ground for other uses. Feasibiliy aside, it would be undeniably utopian.
I'm assuming your hypothetical flying cars transporting people around cities are dramatically safer than today's general aviation (light aircraft piloted largely by well-trained enthusiasts and professionals in controlled environments).
If I had to bet it would be on the "driverless" car.
I think this is the reason we don't have flying cars. We could build them.
So if the biggest problem here is safety (introduced to some extent by irresponsible drivers), maybe flying cars will be possible once we can create automated car control?
Once these robot cars are reliable enough, they will look like a much better alternative to human drivers to me: quicker reaction, possibility to have 360 degrees field of view at all times, impossible to DUI etc.
Let's keep an eye on DARPA's Grand Challenge and Google robot car attempts.
If it were not for the national highway (more, or accurately, civilian use of the national highway) helicopters might have been cheaper than automobile.
Automobiles will start to decline almost as soon as the last shot is fired in World War II. The name of Igor Sikorsky will be as well known as Henry Ford's, for his helicopter will all but replace the horseless carriage as the new means of popular transportation. Instead of a car in every garage, there will be a helicopter.... These 'copters' will be so safe and will cost so little to produce that small models will be made for teenage youngsters. These tiny 'copters, when school lets out, will fill the sky as the bicycles of our youth filled the prewar roads.