I'm on the side of those who believe that suburbia shrinks (or urbanizes itself – lots of twin cities scenarios as the largest suburban areas densify their cores). There are a couple of drivers for this – downtown parking lots shrink as car ownership shrinks and cars can head off to depots to charge/refuel themselves. Condo ownership becomes cheaper as the developers no longer have to create parking lots quite as large, shopping mall parking lots shrink, even new bungalow-style housing in larger cities doesn't need a two-car garage anymore. Land in cities may, briefly, actually become cheaper as all this dead space is freed up for new development.
Obviously, these are changes that will take a generation. Those over 40 will keep their two cars, their garages, and their commuting habits, even if they switch to self-driving. But for those born now or under 20, there is less and less reason to buy a car at all. The carless lifestyle works best in dense urban areas; the speed of the existing movement of people from countryside/exurbia to cities speeds up.
When people move from suburbs and the country to cities, their priorities change. One of the reasons that Obama won in 2012 is increasing urbanization; the US Democrats are the party of urbanites, the Republicans are the party of the suburbs and rural areas, by and large.
Here in Canada, the traditional path to political power is to grab the votes of the suburan ring around Toronto, plus either the West or Quebec, plus a handful of seats in the Maritimes. If those suburban areas around Toronto collapse into a series of urban cores, connected by rapid transit and shared cars as much as by individually-owned cars, the political calculus shifts. I'm sure most people reading here can imagine the effects if a dozen or so electoral districts around their home town suddenly shifted allegiance.
I'm not saying that the Republic Party is gone, by the way, just that it fundamentally changes and drops a lot of its current shibboleths, probably after a long period in the wilderness.
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