Building a new city, geometrically?

[TrueGormagon]

I was imagining how one could design a newer, more efficient city then the cities we have right now and I came up with a fairly basic design concept that I later Googled and found I was not the first. That concept was that of a snowflake.

But why design a new city? Currently modern cities are chaotic, messy, disorganized and generally ridden with issues because of poor planning or the failing of the settlers to imagine how huge these cities would become and how poor the infrastructure would be as the population exploded. It will be easier and cheaper to build new cities from the ground up then to refit our current cities to be better, more energy efficient for example.

The basic idea of the snowflake is the main roads are the arms of the snowflake, with smaller streets as the interconnecting segments and various buildings in the in between spaces, a central governmental/administrative area in the center, followed by utilities, 'offices,' recreational, and residential going outward.

However, the snowflake can keep expanding in a repeating pattern if necessary, or we can build another city.

Power grids would be subterranean, and based on clean sources like nuclear, solar, tidal if your near an ocean, and potentially chemiosmosis power I think its called (Bacteria and viruses used to generate power via kinetic energy from walking or tapping, such as in your phone or under the sidewalk)

So how would you setup a geometric city?

 

[phinds]

I think you are absolutely right that it would be an efficient way for a city to exist but I seriously doubt it will happen, and certainly not any time soon. The fundamental reason is that no one is going to pay for it, but it's actually a lot more complicated than that due to the organic nature of cities. Creating a decent-sized city, say a population of 100,000, from scratch would require a HUGE leap of faith by a huge number of people, even aside from the cost in dollars, unless you just built the whole thing and then asked people and business to move in. The cost of that would be prohibitive and even aside from the cost, getting the tenants would not be easy.

 

[SteamKing]

I think you are absolutely right that it would be an efficient way for a city to exist but I seriously doubt it will happen, and certainly not any time soon. The fundamental reason is that no one is going to pay for it, but it's actually a lot more complicated than that due to the organic nature of cities. Creating a decent-sized city, say a population of 100,000, from scratch would require a HUGE leap of faith by a huge number of people, even aside from the cost in dollars, unless you just built the whole thing and then asked people and business to move in. The cost of that would be prohibitive and even aside from the cost, getting the tenants would not be easy.

And yet, within living memory, an entire city was founded and built from scratch: Brasilia, the capital city of Brazil:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brasília

The layout of a city encompasses more than just the most efficient geometric layout. The local geography may play a role in shaping the city, the placement of different buildings in relation to one another, etc. Although geometric regularity may be desirable from a cost standpoint, it may leave something to be desired aesthetically. After all, human beings aren't honeybees living inside a hive. Too much monotony and regularity get boring.

 

[Danger]

I would design one based upon a spiral labyrinth just to irritate people and give traffic-light sequencers a challenge.

 

[phinds]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brasília

Good point. I had forgotten about that.

 

[dbalexanderr]

hexagonal structures are the most effective structures, flower of life, aka meta-trons cube/ genesis pattern. its everywhere for a reason no reason to fight nature

 

[SteamKing]

hexagonal structures are the most effective structures, flower of life, aka meta-trons cube/ genesis pattern. its everywhere for a reason no reason to fight nature

That may be, but humans prefer not to live in hexagons. Do you live in a hexagon?

 

[256bits]

There also is the Garden City Movement, an idea from Sir Ebenerer Howard of the UK, that probably has inspired urban developers since the 1890's.
The concept is based on residence, agriculture, and industry areas. It is not a prefab for the layout of an administrative city such as Brasilia and others, but for a town of modest population (30,000-50,000) where people can enjoy their homes and work, rather than be compressed in overcrowded cities of the time. One can see the present "cul de sac" and "no throughfairs" as coming from this concept.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_City_Movement

The first town to be developed under this concept was Letchworth, England.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letchworth

Several other small towns have applied this concept, within the UK, Canada, US, Europe, South Africa.

Reason I know about this is that The Town of Mont Royal, Quebec, Canada was conceived under this type of outlay, and is designated as a National Historic Site of urban planning. Although, the town is a frustration to navigate as it is surrounded by a mountain, a highway and a railway fence on three sides, but it does have to central area where roads meet and spread out. The centre is NOT in any way, from the concept, and as applied in the town, as being the PRIME location where administration of the town's functions would be centrally commanded.

 

[SteamKing]

There also is the Garden City Movement, an idea from Sir Ebenerer Howard of the UK, that probably has inspired urban developers since the 1890's.
The concept is based on residence, agriculture, and industry areas. It is not a prefab for the layout of an administrative city such as Brasilia and others, but for a town of modest population (30,000-50,000) where people can enjoy their homes and work, rather than be compressed in overcrowded cities of the time. One can see the present "cul de sac" and "no throughfairs" as coming from this concept.

This philosophy seems to have formed the spirit, if not the actual plan, of the development of Columbia, Maryland which was founded in 1967.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia,_Maryland

Columbia was actually envisioned as a community which comprised 10 self-contained villages. It seems to have been developed in response to the suburban subdivision housing model which arose after WWII.

 

[dragoneyes001]

thinking the design in 2D is inefficient use of land and resources. if you have eight mega-structures forming the legs supporting several circular Center levels for both green spaces and commercial centers (imagine the base of the Eiffel tower with 8 legs and a round center for the shape not structure) you could elevate the city to 60-70+ stories and house and supply utilities more with much less infrastructure spread. you could even use gravity of waste to generate some power the upper surfaces could be harnessing the higher wind speeds found there. that mega hotel in Dubai " Burj Al Arab" has many characteristics that would be great for something like this.