The invasion of the delivery robots

A walkway is, by definition, a space where machines do not go. It is a hard-won sliver of human-exclusive sanctuary within the treacherous kinetic landscape of urbanized civilization. Bound in legislation but enforced with stone, a pavement’s purpose has been unchanged since the Bronze Age: to mediate the inherent conflict between travelers on foot and larger, more powerful traffic. It worked in Rome, it worked in Corinth, and it works, more or less, in Los Angeles, Tokyo and London. New attempts to undermine this ancient institution in order to facilitate the mechanized distribution of junk food should therefore concern any intelligent pedestrian. The plan, hinted at by policymakers but confirmed by a Government report last month, is to legalize the use of unmanned delivery vehicles on pa