So, cities of the future… I am heavily inspired by a bunch of sci-fi films but I still think it’s relevant and will also have to be applied when we become a multi-planetary species.
What am I waffling on about?
The main problem today is that all of our major cities have changed very little in terms of infrastructure and design of the past few centuries.
Why is this a problem?
My first concern would be congestion and scalability of the design of the city. Do I even need to explain any more about congestion? I hope not. I do believe we are on our way to building great solutions (albeit being in a decade’s reach) i.e. autonomous shared transportation, “3D down” networks (Hyperloop), etc., however, I would argue that it might be worth rethinking the traditional designs of cities – roads, for example, corners and grid systems don’t exactly ease the flow and maybe it’s time to actually design a full 3D up and down system where regulation isn’t getting in the way… Let me know your thoughts, I want to learn more. In terms of scalability, we would need to have an infrastructure almost like Lego blocks (must be bloody secure and would require authorisation to replace), one reason is for maintenance and the other is to continuously build improvements of different elements… much like how the ISS is built (probably easier to implement without and atmospheres and land to adhere to but again, have we thought of this?)
My second concern is the placement of amenities around the cities… Why is the CBD central, who made this rule? Why can’t we have built a city like the format of a cell with energy and power supply being the nucleus and have different factions surrounding it? Or why can’t we layer cities like cakes and onions (or come to think about it, the earth itself!!) Start from underground – Have a core for the central energy source, a secure barrier, a sewage and sustainable trash system, another barrier, then a transportation layer to move across the full breadth of the city & transportation storage, another barrier, water reserves, others spaces reserved for new projects, then ground level (which is zero-traffic – only walkers or cyclists and maybe one-person pods that interlink transportation openings), super sci-fi smart buildings and not just crappy home assistants and light dimming apps, I mean the full bloody shabang! A self-sustainable home that can look after itself and you… all you need to do is just live in it. Each building would need a huge core of elevation – the main centre would take you straight to the top (I’ll explain in a min) the others around it would be dedicated to residents of that building… This main core elevation would be publicly available to get to the top of the building (which would have to be extremely high – I’m talking Burj Khalifa high) where you could have a 3D high layer of flying transportation that is building specific within that area. Again, let me know if I’m just barking mad…
Then you’d need to think about culture, tourism and individuality and a layer on top of the infrastructure.
Let’s think about this today rather than cross the bridge when we get to it…