Islands in the Land

OASIS-CITIES – Islands in the Land

Who can doubt that the dream of living on an island is an irresistible fantasy for most of us.  Small islands especially so; islands sufficient for 40 acres and a mule, but not much larger than that.  Islands that can be taken in with a single gaze from no great  distance.  Being “islands in the land” Oasis-Cities will make such dreams attainable for all. 

Fort Bourtange (Netherlands)

 

An “Oasis” is a verdant sanctuary surrounded by a dangerous and inhospitable sea of sand, and thus considered a haven of safety and tranquillity.  ISLANDS are another kind of Oasis, even though surrounded by water rather than the proverbial sea of sand.  Everyone loves islands, especially small islands, as they exude the ambience of a calmer and more carefree lifestyle.  Islanders tend to be friendlier and more relaxed than mainlanders, and are rarely in a rush.   There is a lot less noise, fewer disturbances and – although they earn less money – islanders tend to be much more contented and THEY ALSO LIVE LONGER..!

 

 

[stextbox id=’info’] Oasis-Cities would have a limited number of security-controlled access points, thus making them “virtual islands” in the landscape.   They could either exist as stand-alone structures or as an “archipelago” of island modules.  Each module would be a self-contained community of 5000 to 15000 citizens, ideally chosen according to suitability and compatibility.  The elimination of time-wasting commuting, when combined with a 4-day or even 3.5 day working week, would give OA-City residents much more free time than they would have in conventional OB-Cities.  This being so, conditions of residency may well include a commitment to donate some of this bonus free time to COMMUNITY WORK.   

 

Not only would they occupy far less land, OA-Cities would have incomparably more visual appeal than the unsightly 2-D sprawls of OB-Cities

Albeit very large buildings in conventional terms, OA-City modules would be nowhere near as enormous as the gargantuan Arcology hyper-structures postulated by Paolo Soleri (and other visionary architects) in the ’60’s and ’70’s.  If you think 8000 people is too many residents for one structure, consider that a single CRUISE SHIP can accommodate that number in just 10% of the space – and people are happy to pay £$thousands for a holiday aboard..!   AND, unlike with OA-Cities, cruise ships have no surrounding parkland in which to escape the crowd..!  

Unlike Soleri’s Arcologies, which would take many decades to build and be impossibly expensive, OA-City habitats could be built at a reasonable cost within a realistic time frame, especially using pre-fabricated slot-in apartment modules.   

OA-Cities will be much friendlier, happier and healthier places than OB-cities.  In harvesting their own energy, water and food – and re-cycling most of their waste (including otherwise flushed and forgotten No2’s) – OA-citizens would themselves harvest a sense of fulfilment.   OA-cities will conserve the countryside from ugly sprawl housing estates since they will occupy less than 20% of the land that would be required for conventional towns and cities.  Furthermore, since each city module will be surrounded by an Arcadian “Domain” of landscaped gardens lakes and woodland, OA-Cities would both enhance and beautify the countryside. 

BUILD IT – AND THEY WILL COME..!

EVEN BETTER – THEY WILL PAY TO COME AND SEE IT..!

ONE prototype in the right place – SINGAPORE could be an ideal venue – would showcase the myriad benefits of the concept, thus lifting the scales from millions of doubting minds..! 

 

OA-Cities will be the most far-reaching lifestyle revolution since the railways..!

in 1830 nobody foresaw that railways would change people’s lives so dramatically and, within a single generation, would not only criss-cross Britain from end to end, but much of the world..!  Once a few prototypes have been built and seen in the “flesh”, OASIS CITIES could sprout up everywhere and – just as railways replaced horse-drawn carriages – could quickly become the “new normal” for cities.  

In the not-so-distant future I anticipate many self-contained, self-sufficient, and self-governing City-states based on the OA-City modular-city concept – perhaps loosely united within a Confederal-type structure.