Welcome to Axis ProRata, where we take just 10 minutes to get you smarter on the collision of tech, business, and politics.

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I'm Danper Mac on today's show, why college athletes are about to get paid in the state of Halloween candy

sales. But first, the future of parking garages. Okay, yeah, look, I know parking garages

sound like one of the most boring lowest tech things left in American cities, giant hunks

of concrete that maybe just maybe have a self-serve credit card reader for tickets,

and if you're really lucky, a coat of fresh paint.

But they also might be urban America's greatest real estate redevelopment opportunity,

namely because in an autonomous driving future, they might not be needed anymore.

Seriously, imagine a city in which suburbanites are no longer driving in for work or play.

Instead, they're coming there via a network of self-driving cars that circle around and circle

around until they need to charge and then maybe do that in a less dense part of town or even

back out in the suburbs. In that case, most of today's parking garages, some of which take up

entire city blocks, become

obsolete and can be turned into everything from offices to condos to cloud kitchens to parks,

or maybe even knocked down to make room for such things.

The bottom line here is that the blandest piece of America's urban architecture is poised

to become much, much more interesting.

In 15 seconds, we'll go deeper with Axio City's editor Kim Hart.

But first, this.

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