Land Use

One of the main concepts for Future City Now is that of reserving more natural land and building up and down (instead of sideways). Just as cities presently fight to use a limited amount of space and start building skyscrapers and basments as an afterthought, we need to do this intentionally from the beginning. I even think that small towns should build taller buildings and use more underground space instead of sprawling as quickly and as far as possible until there is no more room or until people choose congregate in a central location.



I envision large, self contained skyscrapers poking up out of a wilderness of trees at their feet, connected underground and through the air with suspended rail systems. The wilderness at the bases will hold walking/running trails and other recreational features and will no longer be clogged with roads, highways, or powerlines. No motorized vehicles will be allowed outside of the manmade structures.



Bill Gates's house in Washington is a good example. I have not seen the blueprints but have read about the concept as I have described above. He built modest buildings spaced throughout his property while retaining much of the wilderness. His buildings are instead connected underground.



Until this transformation is complete, we can start covering existing highways. Think of all of the 12 lane highways you've seen and how much of that is wasted space. We can build on top of them, here and there, to create parks, golf courses, or other recreational places. They will not need to be full-fledged tunnels, but just portions of the highway will run under large covers. One example that comes to mind is the tunnel through Mercer Island in Seattle, Washington. While that is a tunnel, I am just pointing it out as and example of what we can do. There must be many others.



Between the highways and rooftops in the world, it is unbelievable how much wasted space we are throwing away!



Please post pictures or comments of this type of building over existing highways that you know of or have seen.

General Concept of Future City Now

Welcome to Future City Now, our discussion on ideas, financing, and details of the city of the future. We are beginning today.

The main idea behind Future City Now is that it consists of more than simple improvements in technology here and there. We need drastically different types of cities and towns if we are to become sustainable in the future. These ideas will not all be completely new but instead a gathering and combining of great ideas that need to be acted upon.

I hear and see quite a bit about green technology, about improvements we need to make or that some people are already making. Most of these ideas are good but cannot work alone. We also need to redesign not only our cities, but also our dreams and desires if the general public is to accept the way of living in the future. There is a show on television that is interesting but it frustrates me to see them pit possible technologies against each other, rate them, and then choose one for their future city. I enjoy watching the show but we cannot choose one technology over the other. I believe in more distribution in some cases, such as using many green technologies like wind and solar power at the same time.

We are in the infancy of our green revolution and I hope it is not too late for life to continue to exist on planet Earth. We all have good ideas and now is the time to start acting upon them in a methodological manner. We will begin by presenting and discussing ideas on this website.

Thank you again!