[ExI] Greener Urban Environment

[Adrian Tymes]

On Mon, May 22, 2017 at 4:59 AM, SR Ballard <sen.otaku at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, May 21, 2017 at 4:23 PM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Imagine if you were to build a city for 100,000 from nothing - around
>> some new mining or other rich, fixed-location resource, for an excuse,
>> or if you were just handed design responsibilities for one of the new
>> cities China's popping up all over the place in anticipation of future
>> population.  (If you haven't heard of those, google "China ghost
>> cities".)  How would you plan it?
>
> I'm going to do some noodling and some research, and I'll get back to
> you on this later. I have some initial thoughts, but I'd like to be
> able to give a more detailed response. This might take me a few weeks.
>
>
>> Despite what you may hear from others, college is usually a worthwhile
>> investment of time and money - so long as you major in something you
>> will likely be using in your career.  (So: "fill-in-the-field
>> engineering" yes, "fill-in-the-human-type studies" no.)
>
> For a long time I've been interested in materials science, and the
> design of closed live-work situations, such as space stations,
> bunkers, battleships and submarines. Of course I have my hobbies, but
> there is no need to get a degree in a hobby.

Interesting.  I wasn't going to bring this up out of worry that it
might be a bit much, but my own interest in this stems out of my
designs for a space station colony - as well as for fictional
spaceships.  (I play a few RPGs and have many friends who do, so I
have occasionally written up or made deckplans for ships - usually
space, occasionally naval - to support their games.  I was working on
one just last Saturday, and technically I have been paid for a few of
my designs - nowhere near enough to make a career of, though.)

So, imagine an O'Neill type colony: a cylinder, spinning to create
artificial gravity.  Make it, say, 2 km across the circle and 100 m
end-to-end at first.  (Have an agricultural ring below the 1 km wide
circle, both for food and radiation protection, but that doesn't count
toward living space.)  As people immigrate, extend the cylinder: build
more length, make sure it's airtight and pressurized, then demolish
the former end cap to give access.

End up at around 5 km end-to-end, for just over 31 km^2 of 1G
habitable interior surface area.  A typical European city density of
around 200 m^2/person would mean area for about 155,000 people - but
of course, by the time you reach 100,000 you'd want to be building
more habitat, perhaps another habitat like this linked to the first.
Second one counter-rotates (the hub that links them together allows
for this while keeping an airtight seal), then build the rest in
counter-rotating pairs: third & fourth built at the same time, then
fifth & sixth, and so on, all linked together in one large structure
that can grow to house millions, perhaps eventually billions.  (Of
course, not just all in one single line; perhaps each unit would form
an edge of tessellating hexagons.)

...but I digress.  Imagine how you would lay out such a colony - the
first one, only 100 m wide, just enough space for a few thousand
people.  You get maybe a hundred people at first; only if you make it
sufficiently attractive will it fill up enough to justify (and afford,
from taxes/rent/etc.) building more.  How would you do it?