In the wake of the July 2016 terrorist truck attack in Nice I wrote the essay below to explain why terrorist attacks would be almost impossible to stage in OΔCities.   

Paul Theroux (Dark Star Safari)

“Whenever I arrived in an African city, I wanted to leave immediately”.  “None of the African cities I had so far seen, from Cairo southward, seemed fit for human habitation.” “African cities became more awful — more desperate and dangerous as they grew larger.” “Even at their best, African cities seemed to me miserable improvised anthills, attracting the poor and the desperate and turning them into thieves and devisers of cruel scams.”

Cities are the most visible expression of “civilisation”, a word derived from the Latin “civitas” which relates to the responsibilities and rights inherent in citizenship.

The best civilisations build the best cities, easily confirmed by anyone who has visited the scruffy and chaotic cities of the Middle East, South and SE Asia, and even Latin America.  African “cities” are in a dystopian league of their own – fetid garbage dumps and hives of thieves, criminals, beggars, conmen, and prostitutes – as noted by Paul Theroux among many other travellers.

European cities are now being swamped by a stealth invasion of so-called “refugees” – whose envy for what we have created, that they cannot, builds a seething resentment expressed in a hatred for our history, our culture, our  achievements, our way of life.  They seem almost genetically pre-ordained to re-create the chaotic anarchic despotic places they fled from.  Now that we have opened the flood-gates wide and let them in, and we are too apathetic and impotent to get them out, they will succeed.

Our cities – our countries – are now infested with these latter-day barbarians and their many enablers amongst us – its just a matter of time until the final denouement.

The ONLY solution is to create self-contained, self-sufficient cities which will only admit those who meet the standards of citizenship laid down by its founders – and as such cannot be infiltrated.

 We need to go back to the drawing board and reconsider our whole idea of not just what a city should look like but how they should be imagined, constructed and – most importantly – by whom they should be peopled.

1st thing – Future Cities should have no provision for motor vehicles – they are a civilisational curse and a scourge on multiple levels, sorry to say Jeremy Clarkson, much as I enjoy your shows.  Motor cars are insanely over-sized, over-engineered, and over-powered for the puny job of carrying just one or two people – which they mostly do – and incredibly wasteful in fuel and resources.  What other expensive and complicated machinery is only used for an hour per day on average?  And almost never for its original purpose, which was for pleasure jaunts into the countryside.  The unrelenting NOISE and the continual disruptions caused by traffic snarls and endless road-works.  The vast and never to be finished network of roads and highways which compartmentalise and destroy the countryside. They kill and maim millions of people (mostly young) every year and countless millions of wild creatures, not to mention our beloved pets.

And, as we have seen, in the hands of our enemies, easy to obtain cars and trucks make useful low-tech mass-killing machines – either by ramming into crowds or as huge bombs.  Last, but not least, they facilitate sprawl – the root cause of many social and health problems, eg., obesity.  Sprawl creates the wasteful insanity of commuting, which Paulo Soleri called “time pollution”.   If “life is short” why do so many people waste 3 or 4 hours a day going to and from work..?

2nd – Cities should be autonomous, self-governing and self-sufficient in water, power, and basic foodstuffs. This is not as difficult as it sounds, especially if we were to consume less and waste almost nothing, which will be possible with OΔCities.

3rd – Cities should have finite and DEFENSIBLE boundaries, just as they did in the past.  Mark my words – future cities will need defensive capabilities.  I am not speaking of defending against trained armies with tanks and artillery, etc – but against anarchic destructive mobs.   OΔCities will have airport-style security-controlled admission, something which is obviously impossible in conventional sprawl cities.

4th – Cities – i.e., their founders and/or governing bodies – should be able to select (cherry-pick if you like) their citizens – by interviewing and approving or rejecting any prospective residents.  It will be a GREAT PRIVILEGE – not a goddam throw-away “human-right” – to live in OΔCities.   Who but a maniac would let all comers uninvited into their home?

A CITY SHOULD BE A HOME WRIT LARGE.

5th – OΔCities (3rd Millennium Cities) will be peaceful and tranquil and beautiful to behold, with each city-unit surrounded by extensive nature zone with ornamental lakes and bridges, meandering woodland paths, etc.

6th-99th – there is of course much more I could say…

Such a city does not yet exist and, to the best of my knowledge, has never been proposed – and for the life of me I don’t understand why, because this is not rocket-science.   Its not like I am proposing some kind of fabulously extravagant bolt-hole for mega-millionaires like those artificial or floating island schemes that keep cropping up on the internet, but never get built.  Neither am I proposing gargantuan structures for 100,000 (or even 1 million) people living in near-monkish frugality, like Paolo Soleri’s arcologies.   I am proposing just 8-10,000 people per structure.

There now exist cruise ships that can accommodate 6000 people in luxury (plus 2000 crew).  Given their expensive steel construction, engines, navigation aids, radars, lifeboats, etc, and need to be “unsinkable” – these are far more complicated constructions than OΔCities.  And their life-span is only 30/40 years compared with many hundreds of years for OΔCities.  These ships reportedly cost $1.5 billion each to build (in Finland, not cheap Asian labour).  A dry land building (Arcology) for 8000 would surely cost far less to build ..?