Okay, I have a tendency to write a lot of things that I hope never see the light of day.

One of my latest is a piece of soft science fiction with no plot to speak of so far.   In it some people from a city called "Halcyon settlement" colonized Mars.  Basically, Halcyon and Mars  both are versions of a society composed not necessarily of people with AS, but high IQ eccentrics isolated foundation-style for about one and a half centuries (I think in multiples of twelve, hence twelve squared).

Any rate, I pictured, in describing the city, as carless, fairly narrow streets, in which the only electric transportation are automated "trams," both ground trollies and cables cares.  The buildings themselve I pictured as sort of neo-modern, colorful and entirely one sort of panel, of a tinted substance rendering them one-way mirrors.

As the name might imply, I pictured the buildings, at least on the outside, in largely cool colors.

I envisioned, though did not describe, that the panels as having an adjustable opacity, and also serving to store sunlight for release at night.

The city I pictured as largely vacant of people, since the people I envisioned would keep largely to themselves.

Multistory buildings would have glass elevators (well, on one side, with the panels), and most rooms would have a number of small houseplants.

Lobbies would have plants, footrests, and couches, hotels and government administrative offices would provide a reading room in which inexpensive paper backs could be taken, as part of the service.

So basically, a colorful city, but subdued colors, bright from location but light controllable inside, very private buildings with natural light all day, almost nonexistant noise, pollutions, and crowds, in fact, I imagined that each car in the cable system or trolley would hold only one person, or two facing, at least comfortably, to deter packing.

So any rate, the technology does not exist to do any of this, at least not with any efficiency, but just in the hypothetical, does such a thing sound appealing, or am I really unduly weird?

Or how would you guys plan a city if you were to do so, assuming any technology that might reasonably be developed in the next 12 squared years (or more even, since the city was of course founded in the 2020ish-2040ish era).

Kind of sounds like the movie Dark City.

this'll be our ideal city!


just give me all your money ;p

Funny, I pictured Halcyon as very brightly lit on the outside, and consistantly light, but not excessively, on the insides of buildings.

Ian: that's dark, smoggy, and looks noisy.
Looks like some of the filthier parts of Manhattan on steroids.

You'd like that?

This is great - the idea of a semi-universal building material which can store / transport light energy, and change color reflectance / transmission. You got me thinking of several levels of feature control with an embedded super-computer -- operating without a central control. The building blocks themselves would act almost as independantly as the inhabitants: not unlike the organs of the body, and the cells within the organs.

...I'm ready to buy a ticket.

My ideal city would be a relatively newly built city - or at least one with buildings mostly as old as the average Sainsbury's building, centred around the world's largest Sainsbury's supermarket store.  

This Sainsbury's store would be the centric focus for the whole city, you can buy most things at Sainsbury's flagship stores after all, and would be the anchor of a mall of perhaps 100-150 shops.

There would be no inner city type of areas in the city.  Leisure, office, civic facilities etc. would be mainly in a retail-park type setting close by to the mall.  

Thinking about the services Sainsbury's currently offer, services like banking could predominantly be by Sainsbury's Bank.

Outlying areas of the city could have stores like the Sainsbury's convenience ones.

The city's population wouldn't be terribly big.  Big enough to support the facilities above but small enough to be a community.  Maybe a population of 50,000-100,000?

:idea:  In hindsight, in most ways I described the likes of Livingston, Scotland, except it doesn't have a Sainsbury's, or British new towns in general.  It's just that:

:arrow: I don't like old buildings terribly much, nor do I like inner cities that much.
:arrow: I like retail parks, supermarkets and especially Sainsbury's.

A city of Sainsbury's would be cool! :smile:

Sounds like soemone might like a Mega_City One City block.modelled on Saisnburys.

Me, I'd like something that crossed central Manchester with Venice and Amsterdam. with a Gondola network as Venice has but the canals of Amsterdam so and Manchester's inland position along with some of its nicer more modern buildings.

Not my original idea, but that's even better.  If it's modelled on Sainsbury's, everyone can live at Sainsbury's.  :grin:

So... Mega Sainsbury's One eh, Keeno?

Course i'd like it :p i'd be far from the slums under it in the tower in the middle =p

lol

Tenacjious? If it does end up modelled on Siansburys, can I have Nedctar Points for paying all my bills please?

A bit like the stained glass windows in Saskatoon's Holy Family Cathedral?