Many people might need some convincing that conventional 2-D cities (OB-Cities) are, as I assert, as outmoded and inefficient as a typewriter – and as hard work as a laundry mangle.
Compared to 3-D OA-Cities, 2-D OB-Cities are surely the epitome of “dystopian”.
The concept of Utopia (a perfect place) is routinely sneered at as “an impossible dream since everyone has a different idea of perfection”. But that is exactly the point because OA-Cities would be individually tailored to reflect the preferences and philosophy of its “founders” – a group of like-minded individuals, or possibly even a single wealthy individual. Founding charters would not be set in stone if its established citizens (i.e., perhaps not “newbies”) were – as one would hope and expect – allowed to propose modifications and, having publicly debated the proposed amendment, allowed a free vote on particular issues.
However, I think it only fair to the founders – who would have invested so much in the project – that any major constitutional change not be decided by a divisive “simple majority” of 50% plus 1 – as with Brexit (or Scottish independence) – but by a “super-majority” of two-thirds – or certainly at least 60%..!
OA-Cities win on every count
PHYSICAL ASPECTS
LAND USE/WASTAGE – Sprawling suburbs consume and waste vast amounts of countryside – farmland, meadows, woodland, heathland, etc., because flat or gently sloping land is preferred for building on. Despite greenies calling for so-called “Brownfields” and “Grey-fields” to be developed for housing – as doing so would help save the countryside – developers tend to steer away from such sites due to the cost of de-contamination, not to mention media scare-talk about the alleged “health-risks” which would deter buyers.
Brownfield and Grey-field sites would be ideal for OA-Cities, not least because Nimby and political opposition in general would be muted. Since the greater population density would justify the expense of de-contamination, they would also make far more economic sense than conventional medium density housing. OA-City foundations would also be much deeper, so the excavation could more easily sift out the contaminated soil, some of which could perhaps be re-used for landscaping, etc. Furthermore, OA-City apartments would begin well above ground level, thus insulating the occupants.
ESTHETICS – Pedants might argue that esthetic attraction is subjective according to the individual, which might well be the case with human beings, animals, artworks or buildings, etc. But I don’t know anyone who thinks urban sprawl is attractive, although tbh I have never bothered to ask such a stupid question.
Pyramids are reminiscent of mountains, and I don’t know anyone who thinks mountains are ugly, although again I have never bothered to ask such a stupid question. Pyramidal OA-city habitats will, arguably, be much more attractive than mere mountains as they will be draped and adorned with greenery and totally encircled by gardens, lakes, and woodland. I feel confident in predicting that, once they have had the opportunity to see and experience an Oasis-City in the flesh, so to speak, almost every dissenting voice will be silenced.
VISTAS – (a prospect, typically of attractive natural scenery, that can be taken in by the eye from a particular place.)
Exterior-facing OA-city apartments (perhaps 70% of the total) will all have the kind of “million-dollar” views that you would otherwise expect to pay, yes, millions of dollars – assuming you can even find equivalent views.
PARKS – Central London has its famous 4 “Royal Parks”, but these are only conveniently accessible for the wealthy elite who can afford to live nearby. Even then, it involves crossing busy and noisy roads. Suburban London has many parks, but they are scattered randomly all over the place. Many are just bland almost treeless “green spaces” whilst others are run-down and closed after dusk, being deemed unsafe to visit. Yet, as ever, the cost of property (either buying or renting) increases dramatically the closer one gets to these so-called “green lungs”.
In conventional cities parks are surrounded by buildings, which means that those who can afford to live nearby have the best use of them, as housing in the vicinity of parks is much more expensive. With OA-cities this will be reversed – the buildings will be surrounded by parks..! Thus everyone will have equal and easy access, and there will be no busy roads to cross..! Park funding can therefore be concentrated on a single but much more impressive park. Most importantly, these OA-city “domains” will be totally secure and safe to visit at any hour.
UTILITIES –
POWER SUPPLY –
OB-city power comes from remote sources, mainly large thermal power stations, but increasingly from intermittent wind and solar which cannot be switched on and off as and when required. “Thermal” power stations work by burning fuel which produces heat which turns water into steam which powers a generator which produces electricity. Thermal power stations lose about 60% of their heat production to the atmosphere, so they are only about 40% efficient and power is also lost during transmission due to resistance in the cables and transformers, etc.
It would be more efficient to generate electrical power as near as possible to where it is needed. Indeed, in the early days of electricity a city would have a number of small local power stations, but these were gradually replaced by much bigger remote power stations which are more efficient, despite being only 40% efficient themselves. One advantage of having small local power stations is that some of the “waste heat” could be “saved” and piped into nearby buildings for heating. “District heating”, as this is known, is said to be commonplace in Scandinavia, although its not clear to me whether this district heat comes from power stations or factories, or both. Who, these days, lives close to either?
OA-cities should be capable of generating all their power needs on-site, via a combination of building-integrated solar collectors and wind power. If necessary this could be augmented by its own small in-building thermal power station or even an embedded mini-nuclear reactor. In both cases ALL the waste heat could be utilised. As a last resort there could also be an emergency grid connection.
WATER SUPPLY –
As with electricity our water supply comes from remote sources – distant reservoirs where much is lost to evaporation especially in warm weather. Delivering it to our towns and cities requires an extensive and expensive mains pipe network, which means more water losses on the way. Before it gets to the end user it has to be filtered and chemically “purified” to kill any bacteria before being pressurised and pumped through many miles of pipework to our taps. Aside from the convoluted infrastructure required to bring clean water to every single home, office, shop, factory, etc., every stage of this complex journey also uses electricity.
In this age of rising temperatures and increasingly threatened water shortages, who hasn’t thought it puzzling and scandalous that all the rain-water which falls on our roofs and roads and parking areas, etc., is simply allowed to drain away..? Has there ever been a serious effort in the UK to collect and use urban rainwater runoff, or would that just be too complicated?
What could be more simple than to replace thousands of small roofs – which collect not a drop of rain-water – with a single VERY BIG ROOF which would harvest EVERY DROP of rain and store it in underground CISTERNS..! If this water were only used for washing, etc, it wouldn’t even be necessary to “purify” it..! As for drinking water, it would make more sense if every home were to have a drinking water tap or – even simpler – a water dispenser with home-delivered 10 or 20 litre bottles which can be re-used many times over..
SEWERAGE –
Its a CRIME AGAINST COMMONSENSE – and the environment – that every dollop of human poop, potentially a rich source of methane gas and fertiliser, is flushed and forgotten. But forgotten doesn’t mean its free. You may have noticed in your rates bill that sewerage is charged at TWICE the rate (or more) that you pay for your water..! Every day the average small city generates hundreds of tons of poop and hundreds of kilo-litres of urine – plus tons of toilet paper mixed with condoms, sanitary pads, wet-wipes and who knows what else. All this sludge is channeled into an extensive and expensively-built network of very wide subterranean canals called “sewers” and eventually delivered to “sewerage farms” out of town, out of sight and very much out of mind..! What happens to it then and what the residue consists of and where it goes, we are never told and perhaps its better not to know..!
POO POWER & PEE-CYCLING. OA-Cities won’t need sewers, just a big septic tank in the basement where poo will be processed, thus releasing methane (and other?) useful gases? These can be used at source for heating or to power machinery, etc., and the residue converted into premium quality fertiliser. YOUrine, which breaks down into nitrogen and phosphorous, is also a very useful fertiliser. Baldrick’s “Worst Jobs in History” had an ep-pee-sod on just that..!
WASTE MANAGEMENT
RE-CYCLING –
Britain is pretty poor at re-cycling compared to Germany and the Nordics, but the question has to be asked – is re-cycling cost-effective or is it all just a feel-good band-aid? When one considers the enormous cost of collection – the big trucks, the fuel, the well-salaried workers – all the stopping and starting and the distance between houses – how can it possibly be an economical exercise? Besides which, most people cannot be arsed to sort their disposables into a number of separate bins – even 2 bins seems to be too much trouble..! And don’t you just hate it that people put large empty cardboard boxes into kerbside bins and make no attempt to flatten them?
In the UK there is little or no public education on this issue, and definitely no peer pressure as anyone foolish enough to reprimand non-sorters is sure to receive a torrent of abuse or worse..!
DISTANCE MAKES RE-CYCLING COLLECTIONS COSTLY & UNECONOMICAL.
Collections would be much simpler and more cost-effective if the collection points were close together, enabling a daily collection by a single worker with an electrically-powered hand cart. It would not require any big noisy trucks, each manned by a team of well-paid council workmen. And how much easier re-cycling would be if preliminary sorting were done by motivated citizens spending a minute or so every day separating their disposables into (at most) 10 easily-recognisable categories? Seriously, how difficult can it be?
PLASTIC PACKAGING – could OA-Cities do away with it..? (expand)
FOOD WASTE – Back in the day our school dinners waste went to pig swill, or so we were told. Today, due to nanny-statist health rules it mostly goes to land-fill. What happens to the mountains of supermarket food that are binned after its sell-by date? Some councils (mainly rural) supply lidded food-waste containers to put outside as part of the weekly re-cycling collection.
Due to the compactness of OA-Cities it would be a simple matter for both domestic and commercial food waste to be collected EVERY DAY.
GENERAL WASTE COLLECTION –
Every house and flat owner has to fork out about £100 for a 120/240 litre wheelie-bin, an olive green, grey and black-clad army of which untidily line every suburban street. Or you might share one of the 4-wheeled 1100 litre jobs – which cost about £500 – a great asset for your friendly neighbourhood fly-tippers. As with re-cycling, general waste collections are done weekly or fortnightly by noisy lumbering trucks manned by over-paid council workers.
Waste collection will be so much simpler in OA-Cities with DAILY collections by one man with an electrically-powered hand cart rather like the milk floats of old. Since almost every kind of waste can, in theory, be re-cycled waste and re-cycling collections could easily be combined.
OA-Cities will also be immune from the scourge of FLY-TIPPING – rubbish dumped in the countryside.
SHOPPING
CONVENIENCE – Unless you live in a city centre (and maybe even then) big supermarkets tend to be miles away, necessitating a car trip or (awful thought) in a crowded bus packed in like sardines with coughing and sneezing flu-spreading compatriots. Judging by the long checkout lines of over-flowing trolleys many people combine their food shopping trips into a highly stressful big weekly buy-up. Shove their £200’s worth into 2 dozen “bags-for-life” before pushing and hauling their vast loads across a vast rain-soaked car-park, unloading and squeezing it all into THEIR DOG’s CAR, before driving miles back home in the dark – unloading dozens of “bags-for-life” again (its still raining remember) before pacing their enormous “American-style” fridge/freezer to the hilt. Inevitably much food is forgotten until past its “use-by” date, which might as well be labelled “CERTAIN DEATH if consumed after this date”. If, like me, you tell your more health-conscious partner she is foolish to believe the “certain death after date” you will be accused of being “tight-fisted” and not taking “seriously” the health risks, blah, blah.
OA-City shops will be no more than 5 minutes stroll away, making small daily food purchases practical. If you were to buy a trolley load you could simply walk your trolley home, yes right up to your apartment door…! You also wouldn’t need a huge “American-style” double-door fridge-freezer except for impressing your friends..!
“HIGH STREET” (MAIN ROAD) SHOP CLOSURES – Consumer groups agonise nostalgically over the “hollowing-out” (rows of empty shops) in our traditional shopping streets. The usual stale remedies are inevitably prescribed – more and cheaper parking – pedestrianisation – lower business taxes, etc.
Being located in an awesome plant-festooned atrium, replete with rockeries and water features, will make shopping and strolling a pleasure. OA-City shops are certain to prosper as everyone is bound to use them.
ONLINE SHOPPING DELIVERIES – A new irritation on the roads is the exponential increase in supermarket delivery vehicles, aggressively-driven unmarked white vans and unsteady motorbikes with large pillion boxes carrying take-away food deliveries.
OA-Cities will need none of this irritating and wasteful home-delivery nonsense
SCHOOLS & EDUCATION
“Ordinary people” – those who cannot afford private schooling – should be free to remove their children from the insidious indoctrination of a far-leftist “national curriculum” that teaches white children to be ashamed of the great achievements of their ancestors, their history and their culture which benefitted so much of the world, even if today those same beneficiaries are taught to mock and sneer at it.
HEALTH PROVISION –
LIBRARIES, MUSEUMS, etc
EMERGENCY SERVICES (cost and speed of response) –
REMOTE WORKING – doesn’t work, there are far too many distractions at home – as should have been obvious from the outset and should now be obvious to anyone who has tried to get through to any big organisation since Covid.
Remote working won’t be necessary in OA-Cities since all workplaces will be just 5-minutes stroll away.
CHILDCARE – The UK is the third-most expensive country for childcare in the world, based on a couple earning the average wage. The average cost of childcare in the UK for children under two years old is £138 per week (part-time) or £263 per week (full-time) according to the National Childbirth Trust (NCT). Childcare in the UK is expensive partly due to the childcare ratio of one adult to a maximum of three under-twos. (another absurd nanny-state rule)
OA-Cities will be free to make their own rules and, for many reasons, the cost should be much lower, and the same should also apply to AGED CARE.
AIR QUALITY
WILDLIFE & PETS HOLOCAUST
ROADS & TRAFFIC – Road Rage
TIME POLLUTION – Commuting a crime against time
CYCLISTS and pedestrians don’t mix
NOISE & DISTURBANCES
NASTY NEIGHBOURS
SOCIETAL TRUST
CRIME & VANDALISM
POLICING