Basic economics says "No" to 3D printing effectiing mass production.
The lack of basic economic knowledge, 3-D printing process knowledge, and resulting 3D printing growth projections is - "incredible" in every sense." Most especially if you mean (which I do)not having any credibility." It's true that 3D printing will undoubted affect tool, die, and mold making dramatically and probably is - as we discuss. However, mass production manufacturing processes, not so much.
First 3D printing is limited economically not only by a very limited number of economically feasible material options, but even more so by the sheer number of print heads required for significant production output to be comparable with - for example injection molding. In addition, there is the time to produce each piece considering the thousands if not millions of print head passes required for each piece equals limited economic scalability (except for very high margin items where injection molding is less capable). The time/cost competition with other manufacturing processes such as injection molding (current primary component manufacturing process) is likely very limited for 3-D printing.
Process economic considerations must also consider the highly mechanical nature of the 3-D printing process. Think of the avg. life of your computer printer - because they are basically similar mechanically. Even in with exceptional material engineering, 3-D printers will require high levels of maintenance to maintain calibration and accuracy to maintain their very precise printing logistic processes. In mass production environments with the printers (many, many printers) running essentially full time, their maintenance levels would be exorbitantly expensive compared to other current mass production processes and only competitive for limited applications - again, such as making molds which require comparatively low production numbers, but very high costs. Consequently, economically - it isn't likely that 3D printing will ever compete with injection molding of components just from the time/money and energy requirements - though it will certainly reduce the costs and skilled jobs required currently to produce the injection molds required by many manufacturing industries that use large quantities on mono-material components (plastics) - electronics, automotive, furniture, etc.
As far as neighborhood printing - show me the necessary numbers of applications for economic feasibility to operate neighborhood printer franchises and I'll believe it. Until then, it sounds more like social utopia-ism in economic denial shouting, "It takes a village to make economic scale." Generally, for most manufacturing you need far more than a village for economic scale and except for expensive one off items, 3-D printing is subject to the same economics of scale.
