[ExI] underground city: was RE: Serious topic

[spike]

On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg
Subject: Re: [ExI] Serious topic

Mike Dougherty wrote:
>> I have long wondered why we are still spending so much engineering to 
>> build UP the cities, rather than burrowing into the earth.
 
>I think the energy budget is tricky - in excavation you need to move more
than the weight of the building up to the surface, and then you need to add
the building below. Another aspect is that we have plenty of well developed
building techniques for above-ground buildings...

There are existing below ground buildings, but I don't know how much data is
available to the public:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_City,_Arlington,_Virginia

I had a meeting on the negative fourth floor, but I don't recall how far
down it went.  The whole outfit is designed to survive nuclear war.  It's
been a long time ago last time I was there, but I think they had residential
units above ground.  I was struck by how they had really fine, wide, fast
escalators going down.  I suppose that was so the top floors could be
evacuated quickly downward in an emergency.  They have restaurants and
shopping malls down there, everything you really need can be found without
going up to the outdoors.

spike