There's another phase we forget about. If I could choose, I'd like to grow up in a giant forest arcology and go hang out with my friends like it's a giant vertical mall with lots of places to go get lost.
When I finally got access to grocery delivery to my door, I could see how it all will work. Carrying things for one person is fine. It's carrying groceries for a household for a week where things break down. Even putting all that on an elevator would be really unwieldy compared to unloading from the garage.
Self-driving and the evolution of early-life education will play a big role in simplifying life without the parents needing to ferry the kids around five days a week.
Delivery makes sense for another reason: delivery services could have mechanisms that don't make sense for individual people to own, such as dollies or carts to get things from a vehicle to your door. (Due to the current over-reliance on gig-style delivery people using their own vehicles, rather than dedicated employees with specialized tools, this often doesn't happen today, but it should.)
In general, it makes a huge amount of sense for a specialized employee with specialized tooling to pick up groceries for many people and deliver them; the net result is less total person-hours spent shopping, less vehicle miles driven, and less overall labor.
When I finally got access to grocery delivery to my door, I could see how it all will work. Carrying things for one person is fine. It's carrying groceries for a household for a week where things break down. Even putting all that on an elevator would be really unwieldy compared to unloading from the garage.
Self-driving and the evolution of early-life education will play a big role in simplifying life without the parents needing to ferry the kids around five days a week.