Cities of the Future

[CSgeekHero]

Re: Cities of the Future

 

All New Urbanists should be killed. Preferably runover with SUV's or having four-storey buildings(which will increase sprawl)dropped on their heads.

 

We need taller buildings and flying cars.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Cities of the Future

 

All New Urbanists should be killed. Preferably runover with SUV's or having four-storey buildings(which will increase sprawl)dropped on their heads.

 

We need taller buildings and flying cars.

I don't know about flying cars ... people have trouble driving in two dimensions...

 

We do need taller buildings, and stratification of those layers. Why do we have to connect everything only at street level, it's an outmoded idea.

[CSgeekHero]

Re: Cities of the Future

 

Sinanju is my new hero!

[CSgeekHero]

Re: Cities of the Future

 

I don't know about flying cars ... people have trouble driving in two dimensions...

 

I meant it more in humor than anything else.

 

We do need taller buildings, and stratification of those layers. Why do we have to connect everything only at street level, it's an outmoded idea.

 

I agree.

[Mutant for Hire]

Re: Cities of the Future

 

Public transportation gets crappier the further west you go because the cities on the east coast tend to be older than the ones on the west coast. Public transportation was quite successful before 1930, when urban planners decided to center around the automobile rather than keep improving the public transportation grid instead.

 

As for the space and expense, I keep emphasizing that it's a bad idea for a city to support two transportation networks. Where does the space for the rail network come from? It comes from the space you take up with the road system, assuming you don't put your rail system underground where it takes up even less room.

 

Rail systems have a higher initial cost but the operational cost is far lower than automobiles and their associated support infrastructure. You have to remember that there are a lot of costs associated with the automobile. Gasoline, the initial investment of the automobile, maintenance costs of the automobile, insurance costs of the automobile, all the taxes that go to pay for road maintenance, traffic and parking law enforcement and so on.

 

The downside is that a rail system needs a certain usage rate in order to make it economical. That's the main advantage of the automobile and it's the reason that it's more economically sensible to use that system outside of cities, where population densities are too low for rail and the traffic usage isn't enough to justify the investment in a rail system.

 

I should add that you have to make a serious commitment to a rail infrastructure. Most stops for people will be set so it's a ten minute walk between stations (and hence no one will be more than a five minute walk from a station) and trains run during the day every four minutes and at night every eight minutes. This tends to address a lot of the convenience issues that people have.

 

Also, you don't charge for passenger usage of the local rail network. It's for the same reason that city streets are not toll streets charging for usage. Having a token/turnstile system actually increases your operating expenses as you have to set up a token system and a passenger routing system. If you just make the passenger trains unlimited use, the real estate and operating costs of the stations drop as well as improving the convenience factor for using the trains. Whether the trains are open or empty they run anyway so you might as well encourage people to use them.

 

Incidentally, I do not believe that trying to shift people off an 8-5 schedule is a good idea. We're not naturally nocturnal creatures. Most people are inclined to work during daylight hours. At best you can get people to shift their weekends, but most folks prefer their weekends to coincide so they can spend recreational time with friends and relations. In the end, rush hour is a product of human biology and psychology as much as anything else, you have to engineer around that.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Cities of the Future

 

There's plenty of play that can be added to the working day without going nocturnal. Hell, most jobs I've ever had have had me arriving at work before dawn or very shortly thereafter, and staying until after dusk or very shortly before, at least in the wintertime. I might as well have been nocturnal for all the sun I've seen in those jobs.

 

Public transportation is a Good Thing, as long as it's well maintained. When it starts to get crappy, like you always see in the movies, with grime and vomit and lowlifes everywhere, then no one wants to ride it, and it's a waste. But yeah, I've lived fairly near DC on and off all my life, and driving downtown is a losing game. Far better to hop on the Metro and relax.

[Ranxerox]

Re: Cities of the Future

 

This is a Star Hero forum... instead of imagining that The Evil Oppressor is going to come and tear down people's homes' date=' rob them of their cars, and make them live in a communist distopia, how about we focus on cities build without legacy systems and structures already in place? Say we've got 10,000,000 colonists in cold storage, and a robot construction force to set up our new colony world, including its capital city. What do we build, and why?[/quote']

 

Yes, if I had wanted a debate on pros and cons of urban planning, I would have posted in NGD.

 

I'm running an Alien Wars campaign, and since Worlds of Empire is not yet out, I have a lot universe to feel in the details concerning.

 

That is not to say that I'm only interested in cities that fit well in the Alien Wars campaign setting. It would be good if this thread could provide ideas for people running other types of Star Hero campaigns. Most of us are not Isaac Asimov and have a hard time describing the future to our players in way that makes it more than just the present with better weapons.

[sinanju]

Re: Cities of the Future

 

This is a Star Hero forum... instead of imagining that The Evil Oppressor is going to come and tear down people's homes' date=' rob them of their cars, and make them live in a communist distopia, how about we focus on cities build without legacy systems and structures already in place? Say we've got 10,000,000 colonists in cold storage, and a robot construction force to set up our new colony world, including its capital city. What do we build, and why?[/quote']

 

We would build whatever style(s) of cities we think would suit the 10,000,000 colonists. The thing is, whatever they build is what will suit the colonists then, using the technology available then, to deal with the situations and problems and resources available then. Given a few decades or centuries of growth and change, those cities may be as backward-seeming and inefficient as anything we have to today.

 

My main problem with most "urban planning" theory is that it seems to be based on the unspoken assumption that you can create A plan and stick to it. But cities are like every other human endeavor--they're constantly changing over time. How you deal with transportation issues, and housing, and construction, will change as the years go by and resources and problems change. Which is why plans to completely restructure a city around Plan X strike me as a very bad idea.

 

Improvisation and short-term plans for problems aren't neat and efficient, but theyr'e always going to be a bigger part of the picture than a lot of planners seem willing to accept.

[Manic Typist]

Re: Cities of the Future

 

Well, I do think that there are certain kinds of plans and frameworks that are built so that they can remain fairly consistent short of a complete catacylsm.

 

Thus, I think some of the proposals of Mutant, or even others, could be very legitimate.

 

It just needs to be flexible enough to adapt to these changes while still holding true to its GOAL.

 

After all, isn't that what makes the Hero System so great?

 

[mallet]

Re: Cities of the Future

 

Most of us are not Isaac Asimov and have a hard time describing the future to our players in way that makes it more than just the present with better weapons.

 

But in reality that is all it will be. Most progress is really only changes and improvments on what we already have.

 

Horse drawn wagon became cars, trucks, hummers. If these become all electric or fly, or something, well they are still pretty much just a means of travel and carrying stuff around.

 

hot air balloons became zeplins, became small planes, became jets, became space shuttle.

 

Candles, fireplaces and lanterns became lights & stoves. But they still cook food and give light.

 

Houses are still houses. Same shape, size, as always. Apartments are still the same. (In fact old houses, 100+ years old, are very valuable now days (if well maintained)). Today, New house are pretty much the same, as the ones from the wild west or the dark ages. Just warmer (or cooler), better plumbing, and not as creeky. They are still made of wood and stone. Still have living rooms, bedrooms, storage rooms. The only major change has been indoor plaumbing and wiring.

 

Instead of huge ledgers keeping track of records and data we store it on small disks. But accounting is still accounting. Math is math. Profit is profit.

 

People still have sex, just now you have a better chance of not getting pregnant. People still eat pretty much what they ate before.

 

The layout of old cities (1000+ years ago or more) are not much diferent from modern ones (except for wider roads). So in 200-300 years I would not expect much, if any, major changes.

 

UNLESS, you throw in some sort of reason for the changes. Nulcear War, Metero Impact, Ice Age, etc... In which case the chages will have to be tailor made to the situation.

 

But in the end, people are people, and I would not expect any major changes without a major force causing it.

[McCoy]

Re: Cities of the Future

 

This is a Star Hero forum... instead of imagining that The Evil Oppressor is going to come and tear down people's homes' date=' rob them of their cars, and make them live in a communist distopia, how about we focus on cities build without legacy systems and structures already in place? Say we've got 10,000,000 colonists in cold storage, and a robot construction force to set up our new colony world, including its capital city. What do we build, and why?[/quote']

What's the world like? Does it have a shirtsleeve ecosystem, or will the planet need to be terraformed? Robust, shirtsleeve ecology; ten thousand communities of a thousand, spread over the planer. Can't live outside without protection? Archologies of a million or so, at lease one on each contenent.

 

While the multi-use room (aka efficency apartment) may be the wave of the future, I have yet to meet anyone who had that as their first choice.

 

Personally I think we are going to redefine the window. In a very few years it will be possible for every room to have a wall to wall, floor to ceiling high def video display. Hook that to a live feed of Central Park, or the Grand Canyon, or whatever, and a room with no exterior walls can have a view. Combine this with full spectrum light bulbs to prevent seasonal affect disorder.

 

Telecommuting will also redefine the traffic patterns, when the daily commute for many people becomes from one room of their apartment to another. For our interstellar colonist, human life and DNA will be too valuable for humans do do any dangerous work, anything risky will be done through telepresence.

[Mutant for Hire]

Re: Cities of the Future

 

The first thing to realize is that my obsession with transportation grids and cities comes from the fact that cities from the dawn of time have revolved around transportation grids. Cities evolved in the first place because they grew up on the nexus of various trade routes and intersections of waterways, which were the favorite way to move goods cheaply for the longest time (still is).

 

In the nineteenth century in the United States, you had a lot of small towns all over the midwest and northwest. Some of them had rail lines built through them, others didn't. Guess which ones grew into major cities and which ones either died off or are still marginal? In the twentieth century we had the automobile inventing the suburb and creating a massive shift in the relationship between where people lived and where they worked.

 

Hence when you ask what a hypothetical future city is going to be like, the first question is, what sort of transportation system are you going to put in place? Because everything about your transportation systems is going to determine the size, shape and number of cities. Most cities will be a nexus of different transportation grids, from space elevators to vacuum maglev to regular maglev, as well as flying and possibly ground cars.

 

And part of the reason I'm tossing in this anti-car stuff is to challenge the assumption that the future is going to be just like today, except that all of the cars will be flying. There are other ways to build cities. Cars are just one approach to building them, and not necessarily the best approach either. And the assumption that just because we can build better skyscrapers we will, or that it's a good idea is another major assumption that I'd like to challenge.

[CSgeekHero]

Re: Cities of the Future

 

And part of the reason I'm tossing in this anti-car stuff is to challenge the assumption that the future is going to be just like today, except that all of the cars will be flying. There are other ways to build cities. Cars are just one approach to building them, and not necessarily the best approach either. And the assumption that just because we can build better skyscrapers we will, or that it's a good idea is another major assumption that I'd like to challenge.

In the future there will be independent transportation similar to cars everywhere.

 

Along the same lines as Mallet's post...

 

People walked, then they rode domesticated animals (horses, camels, elephants), then they started having some of those animals pull a wagon. Then, the animals were replaced by machinery.

 

It's part of who people are, part of their identity.

[Mutant for Hire]

Re: Cities of the Future

 

It's part of who people are' date=' part of their identity.[/quote'] For millenia, if not millions of years, men went out and hunted with spears while women gathered fruit, nuts and suchlike. For thousands of years the overwhelming (90+ perecent) of the population lived on farms. Saying that we will continue to do certain things just because that's the way we've always done them is ignoring the vast majority of things that we no longer do because of technology.

[mallet]

Re: Cities of the Future

 

For millenia' date=' if not millions of years, men went out and hunted with spears while women gathered fruit, nuts and suchlike. For thousands of years the overwhelming (90+ perecent) of the population lived on farms. Saying that we will continue to do certain things just because that's the way we've always done them is ignoring the vast majority of things that we no longer do because of technology.[/quote']

 

Well, if you look at the world as a whole (and not just N. America and Europe) , that is still pretty much the case world wide. Africa, Asia, India, S. America. Most of the population of this planet still lives on farms and still grows/gathers their own food. And if that hasn't changed in millenia, then another 200 years won't make too much of a difference (baring sudden, major change).

[CSgeekHero]

Re: Cities of the Future

 

For millenia' date=' if not millions of years, men went out and hunted with spears while women gathered fruit, nuts and suchlike.[/quote']

**Tongue planted firmly in cheek**

 

No, now we go hunting with rifles and shorguns while the womenfolk go antiqueing.

 

[Teflon Billy]

Re: Cities of the Future

 

Well' date=' if you look at the world as a whole (and not just N. America and Europe) , that is still pretty much the case world wide. Africa, Asia, India, S. America. Most of the population of this planet still lives on farms and still grows/gathers their own food. And if that hasn't changed in millenia, then another 200 years won't make too much of a difference (baring sudden, major change).[/quote']Ah, take a look around at any extent industrial/quasi-postindustrial society: none of them are agrarian as an economic base. The vast majority of the labor pool is no longer directly in the growing and preparing of food anymore. This change has happened in the last one hundred years (give or take). So your comparison holds little if any basis of reference for someone asking about trends/infuences for post-modern/futurist urban planning. It in fact points towards the high likelyhood there will be drastic changes in labor distributions and innovations in transportation needs more than anything.

 

TB

[mallet]

Re: Cities of the Future

 

So your comparison holds little if any basis of reference for someone asking about trends/infuences for post-modern/futurist urban planning.

TB

 

True, it may have little influence of futurist uban planning, but it does have some. Unless we invent Star Trek replicators, people will always need to buy food. So we will always need people to grow/heard/slaughter and transport food. So, if you are planing on designing a future city, you better make sure the people can eat and have a source of food near by.

 

But, the main point I was making, was a bit off-topic, and just in responce to Mutant's post that made it seem like most of the world no longer farms and that they all live in major cities and have bank accounts and cars and computers. That fact is most of the world still doesn't. and a lot of the world still lives almost just like it did 3,000 years ago. Yes, these are the poor and uneducated, but they exist, even if they do not have websites and tv's or play RGPs.

 

Applying this to the original question, then we can expect that in just a few years, 300 is not very long, you can not expect any major changes with out major events happening to cause them.

 

Just look at modern cities.

 

How old is Rome? 2000+ years? The Vatican? 1000+? They are still here and they still follow the same street plans laid out all that time ago. Sure some building have changed, been destroyed, rebuilt, built on top of, etc... But it is still Rome.

 

Look at ancient cities in England and Scottland. They still have the castles, and streets and building form hundreds of years ago, still in use. Sure they have been rennovated, but it still the same buildings.

 

The point that I am trying to make is that cities will not change very much here on Earth in the next 200+ years. We will rennovate, replace, build up on, and keep most of what's here. It is too expensive and time consuming to make major changes.

 

Unless, a major event happens that causes (forces) us to change. Be it a major flood (like in New Orleans, where now they have a chance to rebuild even better then before) or a war (Tokyo was rebuilt after the war and it was done better and more advanced then before.) or we run out of oil (everything goes electric and people have to move closer to their work because travel is a lot slower), or any other major change (usually distaster) that forces us to rebuild better then before.

[Mutant for Hire]

Re: Cities of the Future

 

Well' date=' if you look at the world as a whole (and not just N. America and Europe) , that is still pretty much the case world wide. Africa, Asia, India, S. America. Most of the population of this planet still lives on farms and still grows/gathers their own food. And if that hasn't changed in millenia, then another 200 years won't make too much of a difference (baring sudden, major change).[/quote'] Well you managed to miss the point. The fact is that when we went to farming, men stopped hunting with spears and women shifted from gathering to farming. There was a massive shift in lifestyle. And as it so happens, there are very few hunter/gatherer societies left on the planet period, and the ones that are left are in serious decline. And as another poster noted, the number of agrarian societies where 90% of the population farms are also going into decline. Hence I fail to see what is so sacred about our industrial-age lifestyle that is so sacred that it too will not be displaced.

[CSgeekHero]

Re: Cities of the Future

 

Ah, take a look around at any extent industrial/quasi-postindustrial society: none of them are agrarian as an economic base. The vast majority of the labor pool is no longer directly in the growing and preparing of food anymore. This change has happened in the last one hundred years (give or take). So your comparison holds little if any basis of reference for someone asking about trends/infuences for post-modern/futurist urban planning. It in fact points towards the high likelyhood there will be drastic changes in labor distributions and innovations in transportation needs more than anything.

 

TB

I still say revamping of transportation won't happen. Here's why. On Earth(Core Worlds in the Far Future), people will live and work in small towns surrounding old city hubs, which we are seeing modern suburbs morph into in some places, and just a collection of small towns in a region where no city is located. The reason is telecommuting/teleconferencing of work. People will no longer need to go into urban areas to work. They will head to small buildings in their town or stay at home to do their work. Manufacturing will continue to become more and more automated. So, the need for a large workforce living near a manufacturing plant will be unnecessary. The worry of outsourcing manufacturing jobs from the US will go away as corporations are held accountable by government for the conditions in their plants wherever they are located. Add the fact that as the wealth of those works increases, so will their education. Hence, not allowing themselves to be taken advantage of as cheap labor.

 

In a multi-planet/system game, you could see the Mid-Worlds as being more like the US of the first-half of the twentieth century. Or similar to China today. Rapidly growing with big urban areas as the centerpiece for people to congregate in the "almost tamed" region of outer space.

 

The Outerworlds/Frontier could see things like the old west, the Firefly TV show, the Middle Ages, or the old warlords days of Asia.

[Curufea]

Re: Cities of the Future

 

Has anyone read the Chung Kuo series?

 

There are about 7 cities in that - one for each continent. Each city is almost continent sized, of 800 levels, and made of a near-indestructible material called "Scrith".

[mallet]

Re: Cities of the Future

 

Well you managed to miss the point. The fact is that when we went to farming' date=' men stopped hunting with spears and women shifted from gathering to farming. There was a massive shift in lifestyle. And as it so happens, there are very few hunter/gatherer societies left on the planet period, and the ones that are left are in serious decline. And as another poster noted, the number of agrarian societies where 90% of the population farms are also going into decline. Hence I fail to see what is so sacred about our industrial-age lifestyle that is so sacred that it too will not be displaced.[/quote']

 

 

Oh, I got the point, it was just misleading and very American-centric.

 

I personally don't feel anything is too sacred about our industrial-age lifestyle that it won't change in the future (excepting the need to sleep, eat and f--k) but the question is what will these effects have on city layouts. And my point is, not much.

 

In a way cities are organic. They are growing things, always changing, but they never loose their "skeleton". That base form will always be there with existing cities. Just like if we look at cities from 300 years ago that are still around today. There are lost of the same building still in place, walls, roads, etc... There is no reason to imagine that this will change.

 

Do you think in 300 years the Empire State Building will be gone? Who about the Pyramids? Or Buckingham palace or Big Ben? What about the Eiffle Tower? And, not historic landmarks. With property personally owned, goveernments would have to buy back huge amounts of land to make major change to the city.

 

Just look at the present day. Here in Vancouver, they are trying to extend the rapid transit line out to the airport in time for 2010 Olympics. But they are having a hell of a time doing that. First they have to buy up all the land from private owners along the entire route (and it's a long route). Then they would have to knock down all of the building that are in the way, including apartment building, old age homes, city parks, etc... Then they have to change all of the trafic lanes that cross over the tracks the entire way, put in stoplights the entire ways, etc... Then they still have to build the whole thing.

 

A major undertaking at an insane cost. And this is just to extend one set of rapid transit lines from the city core to the airport. Imagine trying to adapt a whole existing city with it!

 

It is too expensive and involves too many special intrest groups and private citizens to try and change a city in any major way for it to be practical. So, in my opinion, an existing city (like New York, London, Paris) 200-300 years from now will not be very diferent from ones that we live in today.

[Terry Wilcox]

Re: Cities of the Future

 

A major undertaking at an insane cost. And this is just to extend one set of rapid transit lines from the city core to the airport. Imagine trying to adapt a whole existing city with it!

 

It is too expensive and involves too many special intrest groups and private citizens to try and change a city in any major way for it to be practical. So, in my opinion, an existing city (like New York, London, Paris) 200-300 years from now will not be very diferent from ones that we live in today.

 

I was in London in July. They were working on extending their light rail (Docklands, not the Tube) out to City Airport (not Heathrow or Gatwick or Stansted, which already have trains). In London it isn't seen as a major expense because Londoners use public transportation a lot. If you've ever driven there, you'll know why.

 

The London Underground is less than 150 years old. It has around 275 stations now, with in excess of 200 miles of track.

 

That's a pretty dramatic change for an existing city over the last 150 years. And that's just the change in public transportation. The changes in plumbing and sewers were prety big too.

 

So if London can change that much in the last 150 years, how much will it change in the next 200 years?

[ghost-angel]

Re: Cities of the Future

 

I was in London in July. They were working on extending their light rail (Docklands, not the Tube) out to City Airport (not Heathrow or Gatwick or Stansted, which already have trains). In London it isn't seen as a major expense because Londoners use public transportation a lot. If you've ever driven there, you'll know why.

 

The London Underground is less than 150 years old. It has around 275 stations now, with in excess of 200 miles of track.

 

That's a pretty dramatic change for an existing city over the last 150 years. And that's just the change in public transportation. The changes in plumbing and sewers were prety big too.

 

So if London can change that much in the last 150 years, how much will it change in the next 200 years?

That's a good point ... And it illustrates the point that if you aren't willing, as a populace, to use things like subways, buses and lightrail they will fail as systems for the city.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Cities of the Future

 

Well, a lot's been said about the next 300 years, and most of the technological vision I have is for 50-100 years up.

 

A lot of what's been said about transportation is quite accurate (sinanju's mishandling of rail vs. auto being the main exception -- I can only assume he operates from assumption or misinformation rather than the hard numbers of accurate information). A city's plan, height, etc., will depend on the transportation infrastructure. Flying cars (such as Moller's Skycar) and super-high-speed rail will make an impressive difference on things.

 

The only other statement with which I strongly disagree is CSgeekHero's assessment of telecommuting as a stopper to the mid-range commute. I do agree that a good many jobs can be done from home, and this will make a difference in things, but a good many others cannot -- among them medical professions, hospitality, scientific research, retail, automotive services, and acting. Other can be done remotely but will probably not for various reasons, including legal professions, teaching, travel (such as ticket agents), engineering, etc.

 

Overall, one key to look at -- as many people have alluded, though none have yet said outright -- is to look at the progress of the past 300 years, and the 300 years before that, and the 300 years before that, and try to draw a curve based on the tastes of people as well as the necessities of everyday life. Most likely basic city layouts will be the same, but the details will be different. Urban sprawl and urban towers are issues that will probably have to be dealt with as much as any other issue. Take a look at what's being learned today about aesthetics, including color and design, and apply what you can learn to the future.