[ExI] Greener Urban Environment

Dave Sill sparge at gmail.com
Fri May 19 16:00:34 UTC 2017


On Fri, May 19, 2017 at 7:43 AM, SR Ballard <sen.otaku at gmail.com> wrote:

> So, with this information, a few things have been said, such as "well,
> then for their own good, humans need to abandon cities". But of
> course, we would want to take this the other way. Why not make cities
> conform to the psychological needs of humans? (or I suppose we could
> find a way to change the psychological drives of humans to better
> adapt to a city environment...)
>

Why not both de-emphasize cities and make them better places to live?

A major issue in urban areas is water-runoff, caused by the blocking
> of soil through building construction, but more pointedly through the
> building of paved, multi-lane roads.


There's already permeable blacktop, but I'm not sure there's much to be
gained by that except possibly replenishing the water table.


> Suppose here, we were to kill 2
> birds with one stone, and develop a grass-like structure to replace
> concrete and asphalt roads.


I'd rather see ground-level transport go away in favor of subways and/or
elevated rail. If streets could be replaced with real greenspace for, e.g.,
vegetable gardening that would be a big win.

Of course, the stuff would have to be
> tough, but it could also be useful. If solar technology were to move
> very far forward, conceivably every little blade of fake-grass would
> be fake-photosynthesizing sunlight into electricity, which would be
> carried through a root-like system.


We dont' even have roofs covered with solar yet.


> The blades of grass could be
> programmed to show different colors, to mimic the type of markings we
> have on roads today, and being connected to a network, could
> pre-emptively reroute traffic from an area or encourage it to one side
> or the other to create a passage for emergency vehicles.


There shouldn't be ground-level traffic other than human-powered. IMO.


> As
> self-driving cars become more common, it could communicate to the car
> through the tires.


Surely wireless is better for that.


> Urban runoff would become less of a problem, as
> they could be designed to be somewhat porous, allowing volumes of
> water to pass through. Cars involved in accidents could be moved onto
> the shoulder by action of the grass as well.
>

Sorry, solar grass I can buy, but solar grass that can withstand vehicle
traffic and move vehicles out of the way is asking a bit much.


> Similarly, light posts could be re-imagined as local varieties of
> trees, the leaves gathering sunlight during the day, and emitting
> light from the underside of each leaf after dark, transmitting excess
> energy produced down through it's trunk, into the lines created by the
> grass.


Or perhaps have real trees that purify air and use motion-activated LED
lights?

I really should go to college >.<
>

I wouldn't recommend it. It's not an efficient use of your time and money.

-Dave
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