=cities
I previously posted some
thoughts on the future of energy
production, but that's fairly abstract, and most people care more about how
much their energy costs than where it comes from.
Sometimes a
concrete vision of a specific future is helpful, so I thought I'd describe a
future lifestyle that seems:
- potentially
feasible for typical people in developed countries
- of acceptable
quality
- sustainable
Let's consider a median family in
this hypothetical "acceptable future" - John and Mary Smith, and their kids
Alice and Billy.
They live in a city with about 200k residents, in a
condo on the 10th floor of a 20-storey building. The purpose of such a tall
building is, of course, not density for its own sake, but reducing
door-to-door transit times enough to be an overall improvement to quality of
life. Having a small living space would make that not the case, but the
Smiths have an approximately 2000 ft^2 (186 m^2) condo, not including the
balcony. Their condo is 1 of 8 on their floor; those 8 condos are arranged
around a central atrium that also contains elevators and cars.
The
previous night, there was a party in the neighboring condo, but the sound
insulation was good enough that the Smiths' sleep wasn't interrupted. If
that wasn't the case, again, the quality of life would be significantly
worse than that in a suburban standalone house, making this future an
unacceptable one.
Early in the morning, a windstorm knocked down some
tree branches, but there was no chance of a power outage because the power
lines are buried underground. If they were AC, that would cause increased
losses, but the local power lines are DC.
The Smiths own 2 cars:
- a small
electric vehicle with
1 passenger seat and tandem seating
- a larger hybrid car, with a
piston engine burning a nontoxic fuel that produces little particulate
pollution
Because the cars in the city are
all either electric or burn particular fuels, particulate pollution from
exhaust are low. Combined with brakes and tires with low particulate
emissions, and management of nearby forests to prevent fires, air quality
stays good. Those special fuels might be made by fermentation of methanol
using synthetic methylotrophy.
John works at the city center, working
8 hours for 4 days a week. Mary works from home, working 6 hours for 5 days
a week. This decrease in working hours is accomplished mainly by reducing
waste.
(For the convenience of management, companies naturally tend to collapse 2
jobs of 30 hours/week to a single job of 60 hours/week, unless splitting
hours lets them reduce benefits significantly, so some regulation would
probably be needed.)
To get to work, John first gets in the smaller
car, and takes the car elevator down to ground level. Fancy condos with car
elevators do
exist, but currently cost several million dollars. You might ask what
would change to make that conceivably affordable for a median family, but
that gets into the boring stuff like industrial chemistry and is beyond the
scope of this post.
Thanks to staggered starting times for work and
various road design
improvements,
traffic flow is good despite the fairly high population density. John drives
to the front door of his workplace, where his car is picked up by an
automated
parking system, and walks in. His door-to-door commute is slightly under
15 minutes.
For comparison, the average US commute to work is 28
minutes. In New York City, the average commute is slightly longer, which
shows that high density with public transportation isn't a panacea for
quality of life. By the way, many subways also have
very high particulate levels.
John works in the city center
because his workplace has higher density than the high-density residential
zone surrounding it. His brother Joe works in a factory, which has a single
floor (with a high ceiling) and is thus located outside the central
residential zone.
Mary starts work a bit later, and before starting,
she drops off Alice at the condo of another mother in the same building
who's part of a rotating pool of daycare providers.
Billy goes to an
elementary school. He takes the elevator down to ground level and is picked
up by a shuttle for his school.
Mary asks John to get some
groceries on his way back from work. She makes an online order at a nearby
grocery store. The items are picked using a
micro-fulfillment
system, then John stops by and picks up their order.
At home,
Mary and John cook their dinner, using a programmable electric hot pot, a
set of standalone induction cookers, and a drawer-type refrigerator. Their
waste doesn't need to be separated because it all burns cleanly and goes to
an incinerator.
On the weekend, the Smiths decide
to visit John's parents, who live in another city about 100 miles away.
Rather than drive or fly, they "take the BB" with BB standing for "big bus".
The BB is a huge double-decker bus, which carries over 100 passengers,
normally drives on dedicated roads at 160 mph, has many wheels, and has some
internal batteries but is mostly powered by overhead electric lines. Because
it has many pneumatic tires, the ride is very smooth, and every passenger
gets enough space to sleep or use a laptop computer comfortably.
The
Smiths drive to a parking lot, and park in an area of the lot dedicated to
their bus trip. Their BB drives up to that area, passengers embark, and they
arrive at their destination city in 1 hour after leaving their condo.
Traveling a much longer distance would also involve taking a BB, but to a
regional airport instead of the destination city.
Obviously various other people
have various
other
proposals for future society, but this is mine.