This is a curious thought—the UN has taken it upon itself to design a sort of floating city, what the designer refers to as “‘utopian pragmatism’ — the idea that we can accomplish grand design feats in concrete, practical ways.” With accommodations for about ten thousand people, and all the self-sustaining amenities, it would be tethered to the bottom of the ocean but could be untethered if you wanted to move it somewhere to escape from a hurricane.
Other features include dealing with garbage in an efficient and decent way instead of sending it all to China, pulling water out of the air and filtering it, pushing all the cars into outer space, having big ocean farm beds underneath the structures, and my favorite, “a spiritual center, cultural center, and communal library, where residents could rent computers and bicycles as well as books.”
Honestly, all jesting aside, it looks sort of cool, and vaguely humane, if not exactly to my taste in architecture. If its a choice between a floating city and having to move to Mars, I would probably pick the floating city. The designer, though, acknowledged that, “Not everyone would be amenable to living on water, of course, but those who can’t afford high rents in major cities or who want a living situation that’s less vulnerable natural disasters could benefit from the concept.” If the rents in NYC are too high—and they are—you could relocate just off shore to one of these clever little communities. We could fill up the ocean with them. Except that we won’t because we’re not interested in having that many living children.
Not to entirely change the subject, I was bemused to see that New York is slated to spend unprecedented amounts of money in this coming fiscal year (too depressed to re-find the link). Everyone gets a raise—everyone in the government that is—and there will be money for all kinds of extra things, though not for the crumbling subway. Where all the money is coming from must be unicorns and magical fairy dust. I think the UN should get onto making these little floating villages ASAP because not everyone in New York wants to move to Florida or Mars.
I’m not good on boats, though. Anything with a moving bottom does not have the desired effect on my insides, no matter what the vision-caster believes: “Floating homes might even have a calming effect. Ingels said he lives on a decommissioned ferry, and the rocking helps lull his son to sleep. People would ‘never sleep better than they [would] on a floating island,’ he said.”
I mean, I am not sleeping well. Maybe I shouldn’t be so dubious. Change is hard, though. It’s going to be rotten having to trade land and church for seaweed and a ‘spiritual center.’ But, we’ve got to get with the times. Dig deep, my friends, they’re going to need everyone’s money to pull off this brilliant idea. #thursdaythoughts
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