Has Weber gone Ecofreak on Us? CoG Spoiler Alert!

I just do not understand the willingness to live in a hive. Ancient cities were densely populated because of the need to limit the ratio of defensive wall per person protected. In later eras cities tended to be dense to limit transportation and communications distances and time. Thetelephone and automobile enabled less dense suburbs. Honorverse air car technology should enable even greater dispersion.

Up until last year, I was living in an honest to goodness shopping mall. First floor had the stores, second floor and up had apartments (studio up through 2 bedroom) in some buildings, business offices in other buildings. It had almost everything I needed: a bookstore, movie theater, various clothing stores, restaurants, even a dentist. Nor was I particularly pressed for space in my apartment. If not for the lack of a grocery store, I would never have to leave except for work. The only real constraint was the mall is a bit on the small side, so it could not expand to fulfill every single need no matter how niche (such as a computer parts store).

I could see someone taking this to the logical next step in the future, building one whole integrated community into a single tower. A Honorverse tower does not have to mean living packed cheek-to-jowl (although our experience with megatropolises in China, Japan, and India suggest that humans can adapt regardless). It just means you can hop in the grav lift and get somewhere in 5 minutes, instead of hopping in your air car and get there in 15. It is all about the convenience.

Potato wrote:Up until last year, I was living in an honest to goodness shopping mall. First floor had the stores, second floor and up had apartments (studio up through 2 bedroom) in some buildings, business offices in other buildings. It had almost everything I needed: a bookstore, movie theater, various clothing stores, restaurants, even a dentist. Nor was I particularly pressed for space in my apartment. If not for the lack of a grocery store, I would never have to leave except for work. The only real constraint was the mall is a bit on the small side, so it could not expand to fulfill every single need no matter how niche (such as a computer parts store).

I could see someone taking this to the logical next step in the future, building one whole integrated community into a single tower. A Honorverse tower does not have to mean living packed cheek-to-jowl (although our experience with megatropolises in China, Japan, and India suggest that humans can adapt regardless). It just means you can hop in the grav lift and get somewhere in 5 minutes, instead of hopping in your air car and get there in 15. It is all about the convenience.

Which is what RFC detailed in FAQ section of House of Steel. I could see an Honorverse city as being quite compact compared with what we see on earth. The towers would be very large, thereby concentrating the population. I'd also imagine that what planet side industry there is would be zoned separately.

Yep - an Urban planners dream!

As for being able to withstand the psychological pressure of dense housing, I guess that comes down to culture and what your used to.

When I did payroll at the store I work at, I always remember that about 8-10 of the Indian guys had the same address. Considering Aberdeen's property and rental prices it was probably the only way they could afford to live in the city - we're not as bad as London (£100,000 for a single room flat is not unusual there), but not that far off. Add in the fact that they would have been used to living cheek-by-jowl at home, it obviously wasn't a problem for them.

On the other hand, if you look at the population density of the UK industrial cities at the height of the 19th century all the way until WW2, you'll find that they were much higher than they are now. Certainly in Scotland, particularly Glasgow, there was a significant effort to move people away from the inner city slums to "New Towns" post WW2 in order to improve quality of life. The downside was the destruction of the old communities, which led to a degree of social dislocation. The planners couldn't win!

Mike.

Something I perhaps failed to elucidate with my last post was that population density was not a huge concern when I was living there. None of the rooms were notably small. They were actually quite spacious, compared to dorm rooms and apartments I have resided in in the past. A Honorverse tower built with countergrav has hundreds of floors and would have plenty of floorspace at the very least on par to the typical suburban home in the US.

Potato wrote:Something I perhaps failed to elucidate with my last post was that population density was not a huge concern when I was living there. None of the rooms were notably small. They were actually quite spacious, compared to dorm rooms and apartments I have resided in in the past. A Honorverse tower built with countergrav has hundreds of floors and would have plenty of floorspace at the very least on par to the typical suburban home in the US.

Wasn't disputing that either!

David did write that the square footage in the housing units he envisioned was very large compared to what even the current American citizen has.

Compared with the average house in the UK, US properties are HUUUGE!

Mike.

Just finished the. Book.

The towers are vital to the plot so I will accept them.

I could accept the megatowers easily if each tower was say a few hundred meters on a side then separated by perhaps a kilometer of park land.

namelessfly wrote:Try going into a crowded bar, climb up on a table and yell "SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!" just to see how people react.

I suspect in most bars you'd only get mystified looks, but I've never tried it soooo I dunno.

In some they might just hear the 'Green' and wanna linch said person... sooo I'm also not gonna try it.

Maybe at a bar near U of Wisconsin campus in Madison... or some other college town. Boulder, Colorado... Seattle near the UW campus, like that might at least be recognized what one was nattering on about.

namelessfly wrote:With enough energy, you just vaporize the sewerage, tearing the molecules down to their constiuent atoms, then recombining into innocuous compounds such as H2O, N2, S, K and the dreaded CO2. Of course if you are doing this then your energy use is going to be more like 100kW per person. IIRC, FROM THE HIGHLANDS mentions common disposal units having such capability and thus being a convienant method to dispose of bodies.

I just do not understand the willingness to live in a hive. Ancient cities were densely populated because of the need to limit the ratio of defensive wall per person protected. In later eras cities tended to be dense to limit transportation and communications distances and time. Thetelephone and automobile enabled less dense suburbs. Honorverse air car technology should enable even greater dispersion.

I'm with ya on the hive thing. Not my thing. I need open space to stay any semblance of sane.

If these towers had agricultural levels in them then they could compost ... stuff ... and create a fairly self-sustaining system within the premises. Cut out a lot of transport etc needs also.

If one doesn't mind the population density, I could see city towers with internal agriculture being a thing of the not too distant future, actually. Needs sunshine replicating practical lights for the ag levels, park levels, whatever like that. Imagine how much fresh produce could be grown on the roof of your average supermarket.

Perhaps someday we'll be the fairies living in the Hollow Hills. Giant termite mounds, mesas, whatever. I suppose if one is raised in a termite mound, tower, whatever it would feel like home and one might develop agoraphobia and be afraid to leave the mound/ hive/ tower. hmmm

A good discussion of hive bound humans is TJ Bass' HALF PAST HUMAN and THE GOD WHALE. His hive humans have evolved into four toed nebbishes that are rather pathetic but derive a competitive advantage from their numbers.

I can understand how a mega tower with dwellings at the perimeter then shopping, offices, manufacturing, perhaps even factory agriculture, in the interior might be desirable if the mega towers were spaced apart to allow privacy, decent views, air circulation, parks ect. Given air cars there is no reason to have concrete canyons.

Northstar wrote:

namelessfly wrote:With enough energy, you just vaporize the sewerage, tearing the molecules down to their constiuent atoms, then recombining into innocuous compounds such as H2O, N2, S, K and the dreaded CO2. Of course if you are doing this then your energy use is going to be more like 100kW per person. IIRC, FROM THE HIGHLANDS mentions common disposal units having such capability and thus being a convienant method to dispose of bodies.

I just do not understand the willingness to live in a hive. Ancient cities were densely populated because of the need to limit the ratio of defensive wall per person protected. In later eras cities tended to be dense to limit transportation and communications distances and time. Thetelephone and automobile enabled less dense suburbs. Honorverse air car technology should enable even greater dispersion.

I'm with ya on the hive thing. Not my thing. I need open space to stay any semblance of sane.

If these towers had agricultural levels in them then they could compost ... stuff ... and create a fairly self-sustaining system within the premises. Cut out a lot of transport etc needs also.

If one doesn't mind the population density, I could see city towers with internal agriculture being a thing of the not too distant future, actually. Needs sunshine replicating practical lights for the ag levels, park levels, whatever like that. Imagine how much fresh produce could be grown on the roof of your average supermarket.

Perhaps someday we'll be the fairies living in the Hollow Hills. Giant termite mounds, mesas, whatever. I suppose if one is raised in a termite mound, tower, whatever it would feel like home and one might develop agoraphobia and be afraid to leave the mound/ hive/ tower. hmmm

Northstar wrote:If one doesn't mind the population density, I could see city towers with internal agriculture being a thing of the not too distant future, actually. Needs sunshine replicating practical lights for the ag levels, park levels, whatever like that. Imagine how much fresh produce could be grown on the roof of your average supermarket.

With the fusion plant providing plentiful, cheap energy, that's exactly what I'd expect. The crops could be bred/genetically-modified to live in 24/7 light and grow faster than natural sunlight could do. You'd have vertically-stacked hydroponic tanks with the lights between them, providing very dense "farmland". Then you arrange for the crops to slowly move down the line, seeding at one end and harvesting at the other.

If we assume the technology to produce membranes that can allow O2 and N2 molecules to pass, but not CO2 (and others that filter impurities out of water) we can have air-handling systems that pull the latter out of the air and heavily concentrate it into the hydroponic tanks, which would boost the growth rate of crops while making the air healthier for the humans and their pets living in the towers. It might even be popular for individual residences to have smaller-scale "garden" units, especially for herbs and spices.

I've long thought that ships with similar arrangements ought to be part of the fleet train, if not integrated into the warships themselves to save having to transfer food/oxygen/water for waste periodically. There might be some kind of algae that's insanely proficient in processing the waste products back into consumables to let this be done in very little space. With two millenia of bioscience progress, the algae might even produce special flavors and textures, such as "meat" that feels and tastes like the real thing.

Of course, when people steal all the tanks...