From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lcrocker@mercury.colossus.net)
Date: Thu Sep 23 1999 - 16:26:58 MDT
> (PS if anyone has good references for images that deal with what
> a city might look like after nan - let me know)
Once nanotech is cheap and common, I would image that 90% of what
is now done with above-ground construction will move underground.
You get cheap temperature control, cheap materials, and you save
the scarce 2-d surface area for things that are valuable there.
Earth moving and waterproofing won't be problems anymore; boring
through the earth for communication and transportation infrastructure
will be cheap (and the most energy-efficient fast transport will
be bullet trains in tubes sloped to give gravity-assisted takeoff
and deceleration). All you want above ground is parks, farms,
solar arrays, dams, and short-distance surface transportation.
A "city", then, would be mostly parks with recreation facilities,
gardens, campsites, and a few open-air businesses like restaurants,
airstrips (hangars, parking lots, and terminal facilities go under
too), auditoriums, beach concessions, etc. No need for "downtown"
with big buildings and crowded streets at all, because that's just
under your feet, as deep as needed to support the population.
I imagine, then, that flying over a modern city in 2050 will be
like flying over a current wealthy suburb of golf courses and
stables and sparse glass-front houses on grassy hillsides. Only
the thriving metropolis will be below instead of 20 miles away.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:05:15 MST