From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Fri Sep 24 1999 - 03:37:12 MDT
QueeneMUSE@aol.com writes:
> In a fully developed nano technological society, matter will be almost
> synonymous with "thought.'" What you dream up, you can make.
I think this means that it will not be possible to generalise about
nano cities; some might be built underground, other soar into the
skies. The material constraints are still there, but so relaxed
compared to current ones that the cities can indeed look like
anything.
However, all the wonderful ideas posted here assume a modernistic
planned city, with somebody who says "Hey! Let's build Transburg
underground!" or "What if we made New Muse City *mobile*?" and then a
big project to implement it. A more realistic situation would be the
gradual retrofitting of current cities and the emergence of new
cities, likely with even less central planning than today (given that
the assumed level of nanotech is so strong there is no need for much
centralisation; in a feed scenario a la the Diamond Age other forms of
cities make sense).
So what I would expect is that many cities would have old-style cores,
containing medieval to modern buildings carefully renovated by the
antiquarians. They might simply be tourist traps, or actually
used. Around them (and "around", given the transportation
possibilities of nanotech, could be very far) "modern" buildings would
appear. The first ones would simply be something similar to today's
architecture, improved by new materials (I expect that somebody will
build super-skyscrapers just to show off), while as nano goes on and
architects learn to use the material they become more diverse.
So my vision of the nanotech city would be a garden sprawl, with
dotted superskyscrapers, underground buildings, a very powerful
nano-based transportation infrastructure of some kind, and an
old-style core.
Then again, the city *I* want to live in is the waterfall city on the
artificial continent Forrest Bishop and I discussed two years ago on
this list (maybe we ought to write it up and do some engineering
calculations on it). I want to live in a tower high up in a city built
in and around a series of great waterfalls. At the top there is a
freshwater lake that falls down in cascades through this very 3D city,
at the bottom the water vanishes into a dense jungle. The
building-towers are connected by bridges and movement is mainly by
elevators. Terraces with gardens dot the city, covering most buildings
with greenery.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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