[ExI] underground (was: Trying for a minimum technical comment)

[Adrian Tymes]

On Fri, Dec 21, 2012 at 6:21 PM, Mike Dougherty <msd001 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I assumed there would be
> some economy of scale putting whole towns underground rather than
> individual homes with individual liabilities.  If 20,000 of your
> neighbors have a common problem to solve, it will get resources that
> no single person is likely to afford.

This is true, and perhaps there is room (no pun intended) for large
underground projects.  To those who complain about having to live two
hours' commute from their jobs, a dwelling under the major city might
make life much more tolerable.

...except, that then runs into the problems of cities-in-a-single-building,
with the additional difficulty of doing it underground.  Look up
"arcologies" to see the problems they have.

Most successful underground cities appear to either be primarily
commercial in nature (a mall that keeps on growing) or have had
significant municipal involvement (i.e., the city government sponsored
construction).  So there's certainly precedent - look up "underground
city" for examples.