Vertical cities

[magnemoe]

12 minutes ago, tater said:

Yeah, industry is a huge issue, not everyone works in shops or offices. Were's the industrial zone in that parklike setting?

Industry and warehouses has other needs than shops or offices too, one is transport where their need is totally different, trucks railway even harbor.
Often large areas for storage, here cost is important too while it has no need to be very central but has to have good access to highway at least, some also have very specified needs. This is even true for small scale industry. 
 

[tater]

Where do the poor live in a vertical city? Urban housing projects invariably produce "war zone" areas where no one who can buy their own place would consider living. 

The reality is that these concerns are sorted out by the marketplace. Areas become too expensive for criminals. If policy required that housing was mixed, the simple solution would to be to live in the nice countryside outside the vertical city.

This is the fundamental issue with these design plans, they require a sort of centralized planning that is incompatible with real urban life. In a real city, I'd live someplace nice within that city, or I'd not live in the city at all (as an adult, with kids). I'd certainly be willing to live in a different kind of neighborhood as a 20 year old, up to a point.

I think that this makes such a concept far more workable in more homogeneous societies... Japan, China, etc.

[AngelLestat]

7 hours ago, YNM said:

I think we should think back again to the OP of the thread. The first promise of a vertical city is to cram as much people's dwellings into one place... For what ? Of course for leaving everything else empty !

This.

9 hours ago, Darnok said:

Why would you want to spend your live in 30-40 floor piece of concrete? You can't even decide there what can be color of your front doors or windows. You have to agree for what majority agrees and live like others wants you to live.

Vertical buildings for living are nonsense

Is not, because the main point should be preserve earth and live in the best sustainable way.
We have millons of other species who they won the right after millons of year of evolution to live in the earth too.
Right now if you go to google maps, sat view, you will see that almost any green part on earth are croplands, these does not allow to any ground animal to survive or move around, with the exception of some rodents.
We need to have rules to decide what parts of land should remain virgen or just open to turism and what part can be used for our needs.
If we all decide to live in the nature on single houses.. first it would not be much place for anything else, it is a LOT x10 more easier and cheap to achieve 100% free co2 in a designed community or city than on single houses.
By cheap I also mean cost of living.. they would need to work a lot less.
Of course you can not force anyone.. but prices and rules to leave some places for the nature will be enough.

9 hours ago, Darnok said:

but they are useful for offices, services and shops. Imagine city with only few tall buildings where you can buy everything you need.

In the future it would be more common order by internet, so they will sent the product to your door (only the product travels).
One of the things that double the cost of each product are stores due the same rent cost of the place with windows, decoration, employees, taxes, etc.
Why not skip that and just buy to the manufacture cost, only adding the distribution cost. 

9 hours ago, Darnok said:

Changing american-style-of-live (100% consumptionism) into more reasonable way of live would cause less traffic, less resource and energy usage.

That requires just education.  

9 hours ago, Darnok said:

Cars aren't issue, its the reason you have to use car to buy milk or tea is problem. Common goods should be sold in local shops, so you wouldn't have to walk more that 20 minutes to buy something for dinner. Then only guy who would use car to transport goods would be shop owner.

You also waste a lot of time buying common goods, I think it is a lot better make a list on internet and receive all your products in your door or location (cellphone gps), maybe with quadcopters.

9 hours ago, Darnok said:

Why we are not going in this way? Because your time (your travel time) doesn't cost anything, while employees time costs, so corporation prefer to waste your time instead of their moneys. And allowing for local business to take over some branches (like food distribution) is something that corporations (large markets) won't allow any time soon.

True, they dont care about your travel time, but you care.. so why not live close to your job?
We are already making the change, and you transport possibilities will arrive to encourage the product to door service. 

[tater]

Don't knock consumerism, it's why---entirely---we have SpaceX and Blue Origin (not to mention tax dollars that fund things like NASA). Paypal? Consumerism. Tesla? Consumerism. Amazon? LOL, uber-consumerism. 

[Spaceception]

1 hour ago, AngelLestat said:

Snippy

This guy gets it!

[tater]

Not really.  I don't see it functioning. What planned cities have worked, historically? What was the model?

For this type of thing to work you have to convince however many people to buy their apartments (I'm presuming it is for sale, vs leased, though leases could be a thing as well). Whatever the sales model is (rent vs own), people will not put money down until it is built, or will obviously be finished, if it is very near completion.

Again, I'm primarily looking at it from a western perspective (using the video above as my model for what OP is talking about). 

I think that single buildings are a different issue. You can build a new apartment complex that has these features, and that's manageable in terms of sales, and you need not plan as a real "city," it's just a large, residential building with amenities. To stand alone as a complete city... far, far less likely, except perhaps China or Japan (particularly the former). 

[YNM]

The Netherlands ? Many of the old cities were bombed off so they had to rebuilt everything, including city centers. And according to someone (hmm, over the .net) that is how they adjusted their cities to future expansion, not medieval period, realising a lot of plan they had in mind for long. Not to mention their reclamated land with totally new cities...

Edited April 13, 2016 by YNM

[tater]

Are they really that planned, though? As effectively a single structure, these things need to be built down to a pretty small level of detail... At least to single floors (build in to suit).

I think as long as the structures are individual, and owned by different people, then it's not quite the same...

[Andem]

15 minutes ago, tater said:

Are they really that planned, though? As effectively a single structure, these things need to be built down to a pretty small level of detail... At least to single floors (build in to suit).

I think as long as the structures are individual, and owned by different people, then it's not quite the same...

Well, you could make every space modular. Having "clip in" modules to tailor your house to your needs.

[tater]

Yeah, that idea was floated back in the megastructure days as I recall. Still, the overall structure needs to be built, and that may or may not allow for hanging apartments off a framework, depending on design... They'll all be pretty much the same, anyway, though. 

I notice no one bit on my question about so-called "affordable" housing. It's a non-trivial issue. Some new buildings in NYC have had low-income housing in the same building, but they have different doors... the Doorman door for the expensive apartments, and just a door around the corner for the other ones. That could sort of work, I suppose, but such a building would not be my first choice. Will they have housing for bums, or will they chuck them off the sky lobby?

[Stargate525]

8 hours ago, AngelLestat said:

Is not, because the main point should be preserve earth and live in the best sustainable way.

We have millons of other species who they won the right after millons of year of evolution to live in the earth too.
Right now if you go to google maps, sat view, you will see that almost any green part on earth are croplands, these does not allow to any ground animal to survive or move around, with the exception of some rodents.

The jungles of the Amazon, the majority of the African heart, Australia, the ranchlands of the Midwest, Siberia, the Andes, the Himalayas, and the vast majority of SUBURBAN WISCONSIN beg to differ. You simply aren't looking.

Quote

We need to have rules to decide what parts of land should remain virgen or just open to turism and what part can be used for our needs.
If we all decide to live in the nature on single houses.. first it would not be much place for anything else, it is a LOT x10 more easier and cheap to achieve 100% free co2 in a designed community or city than on single houses.
By cheap I also mean cost of living.. they would need to work a lot less.
Of course you can not force anyone.. but prices and rules to leave some places for the nature will be enough.

I could go on a long rant on the idiocy of treating CO2 like we treated HFCs, but that's only tangentially related. You absolutely can force someone, and that's what would be required. You'll have to purchase and demolish 90-99% of the entire global housing market to make this reality. People will not sell to the government if they know their house is going to get destroyed and either turned to fallow or put into the footprint of one of your megastructures. You will have to use Eminent Domain, en masse, to force them out.

Quote

In the future it would be more common order by internet, so they will sent the product to your door (only the product travels).
One of the things that double the cost of each product are stores due the same rent cost of the place with windows, decoration, employees, taxes, etc.
Why not skip that and just buy to the manufacture cost, only adding the distribution cost. 

Because 80% of our economy is retail services and transportation. You will quite literally crash the entire planet's economy if you remove all brick and mortar stores from the USA. It's currently happening, and anyone who knows what markers to look for should be terrified of the self-driving car.

Quote

That requires just education.  

You mean 'agreement with your mindset.' I'm educated, and I disagree with almost every conclusion you're making.

Quote

 

You also waste a lot of time buying common goods, I think it is a lot better make a list on internet and receive all your products in your door or location (cellphone gps), maybe with quadcopters.

True, they dont care about your travel time, but you care.. so why not live close to your job?
We are already making the change, and you transport possibilities will arrive to encourage the product to door service. 

 

You don't waste much time shopping, unless you're inefficient at it. 2-3 hours a week, tops.

Listening to your views, I'm -very- curious what you do for a living, if you don't recognize the impact removing the retail job sector would have.

[tater]

Particularly as manufacturing ceases to be an activity people do...

[YNM]

20 hours ago, AngelLestat said:

If we all decide to live in the nature on single houses.. first it would not be much place for anything else, it is a LOT x10 more easier and cheap to achieve 100% free co2 in a designed community or city than on single houses.
By cheap I also mean cost of living.. they would need to work a lot less.
Of course you can not force anyone.. but prices and rules to leave some places for the nature will be enough.

There's a lot of problem here.

1. Until today, no tall buildings are break-even on the topic of energy consumption vs generation. Electricity is the main problem. My main POV is solar panels, because wind turbines is just too massive of mass and too small of production to even justify large buildings. Houses can be built spread enough that making the roof out of PV or even using a solar water heater and bottles of water through the roof for lighting would cause it to break even, at least on the day.

2. Cheap cost of living, less work. Yeah, sounds great, apart that the building needs initial construction and maintenance. Where would that go ? Not to mention that most tall buildings older than certain age should be rebuilt - the way how it is, even today. To make miles high spire without rebuilding in centuries would be out of mind. Not to mention the population inside continues to grow...

20 hours ago, AngelLestat said:

In the future it would be more common order by internet, so they will sent the product to your door (only the product travels).

One of the things that double the cost of each product are stores due the same rent cost of the place with windows, decoration, employees, taxes, etc.
Why not skip that and just buy to the manufacture cost, only adding the distribution cost.

You also waste a lot of time buying common goods, I think it is a lot better make a list on internet and receive all your products in your door or location (cellphone gps), maybe with quadcopters.

Wow, yeah, nobody works ! How can we afford things ? Flooding YouTube ?

You should really play some city building games like Cities : Skylines and prove what I just say. You'll notice that you need waay more offices (high-level jobs) to fill the need of job vacancy for your residents compared to commercial or industries. Also you can't make everyone to be doctors or nurses or firemen or teachers. No matter how many colleges you have in the city, low level jobs will always be in need.

Also, for RL points, China. That's no robots, that's just human, far cheaper. Mention any goods (not consumables, OK) you have that has zero Chinese content in it (raw material or manufacturing).

Edited April 14, 2016 by YNM

[Stargate525]

11 hours ago, tater said:

Particularly as manufacturing ceases to be an activity people do...

Which is very bad. That leaves the only jobs that don't require significant specialization and training the ones that require human adaptability and risk. Miners, janitors, farmers, loggers, fishermen... The reason the middle class is vanishing is because there's nothing intrinsically human required in the middle level manufacturing or office positions that can't be done better by a robotic arm or a sufficiently-developed spreadsheet.

If you take the humans out of SELLING the stuff as well...

[YNM]

17 hours ago, tater said:

Are they really that planned, though? As effectively a single structure, these things need to be built down to a pretty small level of detail... At least to single floors (build in to suit).

I think as long as the structures are individual, and owned by different people, then it's not quite the same...

Hmm, yeah, not quite the same. Still it's very organized through. Just look at Almere or Lelystad (new cities) and compare it to say, Groningen. Very different, both from visual and placement. You can compare it to almost all old cities, including the UK or even Boston. My site ? no brainer.

16 minutes ago, Stargate525 said:

Which is very bad. That leaves the only jobs that don't require significant specialization and training the ones that require human adaptability and risk. Miners, janitors, farmers, loggers, fishermen... The reason the middle class is vanishing is because there's nothing intrinsically human required in the middle level manufacturing or office positions that can't be done better by a robotic arm or a sufficiently-developed spreadsheet.

If you take the humans out of SELLING the stuff as well...

Servicing jobs can't be fully automated I guess, but it's not that things need to be serviced that often... If it does, then that's very bad.

Or, sales representative.

Edited April 14, 2016 by YNM

[tater]

25 minutes ago, YNM said:

Hmm, yeah, not quite the same. Still it's very organized through. Just look at Almere or Lelystad (new cities) and compare it to say, Groningen. Very different, both from visual and placement. You can compare it to almost all old cities, including the UK or even Boston. My site ? no brainer.

Yeah, which would you rather live in, new vertical city, or Paris? Vertical city, or San Francisco? No brainer.

[AngelLestat]

Ok, I am kinda short in time due my work, So I cant explain in detail what I meant because I need to make graphics, design and explain how it would look these cities rules.. I will due it some time in the future because I am interest too and I dont see nothing similar in internet that can work as example. Most designers had their "street idea" very fixed in their minds. 
Also remind that this is just my opinion and I am not attacking anyone.. so there is no need to answer me from an aggressive posture.

17 hours ago, Stargate525 said:

The jungles of the Amazon, the majority of the African heart, Australia, the ranchlands of the Midwest, Siberia, the Andes, the Himalayas, and the vast majority of SUBURBAN WISCONSIN beg to differ. You simply aren't looking.

What I am looking is that the amount of big animals today vs 1000 years back, is from 10 to 1000 times lower, in the last 40 years we reduce to half the wild life mass, this include even especies which number increase due lack of competence. Many species survive migrating to other terrains, but if you cut those passages with urban zones or cropfarms, then you are killing a whole species or reducing their numbers a lot.
Even in places where there is no much human activity the damage is considerable.. like siberia..  how many tigers are left?  
Farms extend their territories and they kill to any animal who dare to eat their crops or animals.

Quote

I could go on a long rant on the idiocy of treating CO2 like we treated HFCs, but that's only tangentially related. You absolutely can force someone, and that's what would be required. You'll have to purchase and demolish 90-99% of the entire global housing market to make this reality. People will not sell to the government if they know their house is going to get destroyed and either turned to fallow or put into the footprint of one of your megastructures. You will have to use Eminent Domain, en masse, to force them out.

Sorry.. but you misunderstood me.. I never said nothing about demolish..  anything..  never.. 
But many people who had big terrains close to cities are now selling because that land becomes more cost effective for other applications as residential, offices, industrial, etc.
Some of those sellers are even more clever, and they design their own community (or town, not sure the right word), to increase the value of their lands and incentivize people to live there. 
For example you can lot your terrain with a particular structure and with certain infrastructure to improve the quality of live of your residential zone, or industrial zone, commerce zone or town (all together.)
This can be made at bigger scale by the state too.
Right now the first examples in that direction are close residential places, with surveillance, energy and hot water provided by solar panels and thermal collectors, with internal rules that any residential needs to comply related to type of house or construction, house requirements, internet for all the neighborhood, share bicycles, etc.
My way is just go one step further..   A whole community using many floor levels with different building, all with special construction rules, in which maybe they should include a connection to a rail transport system at different floor levels  connecting different buildings, in this case you dont need to relay on 1 transport layer zone, and the transport capacity increase at the same ratio than your city.
That is just one particularity, maybe the best way to explain this (without make all the design job right now) is that you imagine how those rules could be to guarantee the best efficiency in most of our activities.

Quote

Because 80% of our economy is retail services and transportation. You will quite literally crash the entire planet's economy if you remove all brick and mortar stores from the USA. It's currently happening, and anyone who knows what markers to look for should be terrified of the self-driving car.

That is not how economy works.  First.. changes does not happen from one day to the other.  Each time a new product or service appear, is because it is more cost efficient or useful than previous products or services, and each time this happen, they generate profit!, only for them?  no.. for everyone, because if people buy it or use it, is because it save them time or because they do a better work with that which allow them to make more profit.
Lately people started to make their own content in blogs, youtube, or any other platform, this could not be very welcome by normal media companies, they lose profit, but thanks to this many other people had access to information (which allow them to create more profit) and the content creators receive profits due visits..
So if you make a new town platform with their own development rules, common expenses, infrastructure and services, people may find that cheap and usefull, in that case it will be better for them and for the town, then this model start to get copy and evolve. 

Quote

You mean 'agreement with your mindset.' I'm educated, and I disagree with almost every conclusion you're making.

??   We are talking of  consumerism, which means buy any good even if you dont really need them, following that need to have the last model guided 100% by market advertising, or as a way to show off with others.
I am not saying that everyone should be of one way or the other way.. I am just talking of efficiency, then after that each one is free to live their life as they want, if someone like shoes, he/she can have 15 pair of shoes, no problem.
But if you take a view to nordic countries, where life was always hard due cold, few resources and long winter nights.  They learned how to be efficient, that is why they had a very good quality of live and you will not see nobody with the best watch or cars, in fact is not well seeing these behavior by the community.
Again.. I am not saying that is bad, I am a capitalist, it is not the best efficient behavior (just that).  

5 hours ago, YNM said:

There's a lot of problem here.

1. Until today, no tall buildings are break-even on the topic of energy consumption vs generation. Electricity is the main problem. My main POV is solar panels, because wind turbines is just too massive of mass and too small of production to even justify large buildings. Houses can be built spread enough that making the roof out of PV or even using a solar water heater and bottles of water through the roof for lighting would cause it to break even, at least on the day.

To understand my point, we need to take a look to the simultaneity coefficient; demand, storage and prediction.
On a single house, your consumption time of goods or services can not be well predicted on moment and amount. If you want to generate your own electricity to fulfill all your needs, then you need to take into account that most of your consumption may be at late hours, then take into account all the time that you are on vacation or in your house with extra friends, that force you to overstate your power and storage needs. You need to buy an inverter, a charge regulator, solar panels all retail, which increase the cost of the product and installation cost.
Then you need to make the same calculation for all the other goods and services you can share, but in the community case, no all the people is on vacation or with friends or using a service at the same time, you have an average consumption and storage needs, so if you add internet, water, some common tools or products that everyone may need, etc..  You save a lot of money.

But that is not the end, ecologic designs at big scale are cheaper, a building has even benefic in air circulation or temperature management, I can talk all day on benefits vs single houses.
Also each building does not need to generate its own energy, as you mention on building area for solar panels..  You can have few, but always big scale generation is more efficient than small scale (in case you dont have huge losses on distribution and distances), but that only counts for really big distances.

Quote

2. Cheap cost of living, less work. Yeah, sounds great, apart that the building needs initial construction and maintenance. Where would that go ? Not to mention that most tall buildings older than certain age should be rebuilt - the way how it is, even today. To make miles high spire without rebuilding in centuries would be out of mind. Not to mention the population inside continues to grow...

When I talk about vertical cities, I am talking on an average of 5 to 8 floors (in almost continue way) with some tall towers.
You dont waste much in structural if many of your buildings are joint and they block high winds between them.
A building also waste the same structure than single houses with the exception of very tall buildings. 
With the time buildings structure will become cheaper, light and fast to build, you will not need much concrete neither.
But yeah, I am sure that you may take many different concepts from internet where that would not apply.

Quote

Wow, yeah, nobody works ! How can we afford things ? Flooding YouTube ?

You should really play some city building games like Cities : Skylines and prove what I just say. You'll notice that you need waay more offices (high-level jobs) to fill the need of job vacancy for your residents compared to commercial or industries. Also you can't make everyone to be doctors or nurses or firemen or teachers. No matter how many colleges you have in the city, low level jobs will always be in need.

Also, for RL points, China. That's no robots, that's just human, far cheaper. Mention any goods (not consumables, OK) you have that has zero Chinese content in it (raw material or manufacturing).

I explain this to stargate525, read my answer there.

Edited April 14, 2016 by AngelLestat

[tater]

5-8 stories is a vastly different thing than the skyscrapers pictured in the video, connected by lobbies. I'd add that individual buildings, even large buildings, are a totally different concept than a "sky city" that is purpose-built as a single structure.

A better model might be to create zoning/tax incentives to make the most use of vertical space. So you'd get some perks for including outside space (which would require it be built to hold soil, and a large % must be plant life)  above ground level, but it needs to be some relationship to the total floor area of the building (X times floor area to encourage multiple outdoor bridges). Also give tax breaks, etc for connecting buildings after the fact. So you build a such a facility, then I build one on the land next door... we arrange for my sky lobby to attach to yours, and we both receive a tax incentive.

You want or more natural city growth, and this would provide it.

[magnemoe]

5 hours ago, Stargate525 said:

Which is very bad. That leaves the only jobs that don't require significant specialization and training the ones that require human adaptability and risk. Miners, janitors, farmers, loggers, fishermen... The reason the middle class is vanishing is because there's nothing intrinsically human required in the middle level manufacturing or office positions that can't be done better by a robotic arm or a sufficiently-developed spreadsheet.

If you take the humans out of SELLING the stuff as well...

Borderland political, milde class is disappearing in the US not because of automation, outsourcing is far larger, main issue is fewer milde class jobs letting employee cut wages down to lower class. Globally middle class is in an growth not seen before, yes brackets here are lower but still

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, AngelLestat said:

Ok, I am kinda short in time due my work, So I cant explain in detail what I meant because I need to make graphics, design and explain how it would look these cities rules.. I will due it some time in the future because I am interest too and I dont see nothing similar in internet that can work as example. Most designers had their "street idea" very fixed in their minds. 
Also remind that this is just my opinion and I am not attacking anyone.. so there is no need to answer me from an aggressive posture.

What I am looking is that the amount of big animals today vs 1000 years back, is from 10 to 1000 times lower, in the last 40 years we reduce to half the wild life mass, this include even especies which number increase due lack of competence. Many species survive migrating to other terrains, but if you cut those passages with urban zones or cropfarms, then you are killing a whole species or reducing their numbers a lot.
Even in places where there is no much human activity the damage is considerable.. like siberia..  how many tigers are left?  
Farms extend their territories and they kill to any animal who dare to eat their crops or animals.

This is an 3rd world problem, yes its true. In the US and Europe the trend is opposite, less pollution, more wilderness, more large animals, usually less farmland as the less productive is dropped and return to forrest, farmer has an option to do other work who pays more. 
3rd world is 30-60 year behind, their issue is not building gigant cities who they could not afford and would collapse because of mismanagement before people move inn, 
Yes its another issue cities are pretty robust as in manages large scale disruptions pretty well and organic. How will this mega-building work then someone hack the ventilation system or during an blackout? 



 

[Stargate525]

14 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Borderland political, milde class is disappearing in the US not because of automation, outsourcing is far larger, main issue is fewer milde class jobs letting employee cut wages down to lower class. Globally middle class is in an growth not seen before, yes brackets here are lower but still

We're both outsourcing and automating. We don't have the manufacturing jobs because we are both a) replacing the line with robots and b) legislating that a line worker be paid 50-60x more than the same-skilled line worker in a foreign country with laxer laws.

The world is seeing explosion in the middle class because Asia and South America is largely where we were in the 1940s. What's happening here is going to happen to those countries in 30-50 years, and will happen to Africa when and if that mess ever gets sorted out. We're buying their stuff because it's cheap, but we more and more unable to employ ourselves, which removes those people from the consumer pool.

1 hour ago, AngelLestat said:

That is not how economy works.  First.. changes does not happen from one day to the other.  Each time a new product or service appear, is because it is more cost efficient or useful than previous products or services, and each time this happen, they generate profit!, only for them?  no.. for everyone, because if people buy it or use it, is because it save them time or because they do a better work with that which allow them to make more profit.

Lately people started to make their own content in blogs, youtube, or any other platform, this could not be very welcome by normal media companies, they lose profit, but thanks to this many other people had access to information (which allow them to create more profit) and the content creators receive profits due visits..
So if you make a new town platform with their own development rules, common expenses, infrastructure and services, people may find that cheap and usefull, in that case it will be better for them and for the town, then this model start to get copy and evolve.

Your first paragraph is true for makers; a more efficient mill will make more flour. However, that does not increase the demand for flour. Prices drop. Your miller can't reduce the cost of the mill, but they can fire one of his mill-runners, thereby maintaining his profit. In a normal, healthy economy that's okay, and the mill-runner will find a different job.

But we don't have a normal, healthy economy. Replace the mill with the self-driving car and drones. You'll see full adoption by the transportation industries as soon as the public allows it, let's say 5 years. In five years, you've eliminated 80-100% of all jobs whose primary job is driving: truckers, cabbies, chauffeurs, deliverymen, mailmen. 4 Million jobs gone in 5 years. Where are they going to go? Their skill is obsolete. you've removed that cost on your products, yes, but you've simultaneously taken a cudgel to your consumer base. It's happened before where rapid technological innovation has stagnated and killed an economy, and it's not a guarantee that it recovers.

media content creation is being heavily attacked by traditional media or being subsumed by it. Follow the attempts to pass more stringent restrictions on copyright and fair use law for that story. It's not more efficient, it's advertising delivery. Access to information does not magically create profit, especially when the majority of the country is an employee, not an employer.

[magnemoe]

33 minutes ago, Stargate525 said:

Your first paragraph is true for makers; a more efficient mill will make more flour. However, that does not increase the demand for flour. Prices drop. Your miller can't reduce the cost of the mill, but they can fire one of his mill-runners, thereby maintaining his profit. In a normal, healthy economy that's okay, and the mill-runner will find a different job.

But we don't have a normal, healthy economy. Replace the mill with the self-driving car and drones. You'll see full adoption by the transportation industries as soon as the public allows it, let's say 5 years. In five years, you've eliminated 80-100% of all jobs whose primary job is driving: truckers, cabbies, chauffeurs, deliverymen, mailmen. 4 Million jobs gone in 5 years. Where are they going to go? Their skill is obsolete. you've removed that cost on your products, yes, but you've simultaneously taken a cudgel to your consumer base. It's happened before where rapid technological innovation has stagnated and killed an economy, and it's not a guarantee that it recovers.

media content creation is being heavily attacked by traditional media or being subsumed by it. Follow the attempts to pass more stringent restrictions on copyright and fair use law for that story. It's not more efficient, it's advertising delivery. Access to information does not magically create profit, especially when the majority of the country is an employee, not an employer.

No you don't need much more flour, note that demand will increase some but is limited after some level, note that not only get flour cheaper but all products made from flour, 
150 years ago 80-90% was farmers, gnp and tech level was an faction of today, I see the upcoming changes as less fundamental. 
The industrial revolution was an pretty rough ride, part of this was that the society was dirt poor and badly run by modern standards.
On the other hand you might want her work (warning large gif)
 

45 minutes ago, Stargate525 said:

We're both outsourcing and automating. We don't have the manufacturing jobs because we are both a) replacing the line with robots and b) legislating that a line worker be paid 50-60x more than the same-skilled line worker in a foreign country with laxer laws.

The world is seeing explosion in the middle class because Asia and South America is largely where we were in the 1940s. What's happening here is going to happen to those countries in 30-50 years, and will happen to Africa when and if that mess ever gets sorted out. We're buying their stuff because it's cheap, but we more and more unable to employ ourselves, which removes those people from the consumer pool.

Europe don't have this US issue, other issues who might be worse in the long term but not this. 
Yes lots of larger countries China, India Brazil and others are industrializing, this increase global GNP a lot, part of the reason the US finance crisis had way less global impact than 30 years earlier. Now compare 1950 middle class standard with today both in US and in China and I think even the Chinese middle class is better of. 
The cake is not an fixed size, all sort of efficiency increase the size of the cake, no the wealth distribution will change but the overall cake size increase.  
Most people have an mobile phone today, yes more than 3.5 billion, this shocked me. 
 

[tater]

Comparing standards of living over time is pretty difficult. In 1966, the only people with phones that were mobile---in a car, for example---were the super rich Their company (that they owned, we're talking Rockefellers here). Their car phone was in their limousine. In 1986, the upper middle class might have had car phones, a handful of people had computers. In 1996, most adults probably had a cell phone, many had computers. Now every 13 year old girl has a phone, and more computing power than the Apollo Program had access to in their pocket.

So anyone with a smart phone = superrich? How would you monetize that change in lifestyle? I'd argue that anything that didn't heavily weight modern tech towards the "billionaire" side for the '60s has an axe to grind. Homes are larger, too. I could get along in a cool, sic-fi city, but I'm sure I'd miss my 400 m² house.

[Bill Phil]

In 1986 more than a handful of people had computers. Millions, in fact.

[tater]

37 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

In 1986 more than a handful of people had computers. Millions, in fact.

Yeah, true... I was really thinking early 80s, but I was going back by 10 year increments. Even millions is not a huge % of the global population, however. What % of the world had access to a computer they owned in 1986? 0.1%? Approaching 1%?

My point stands, though, that it's incredibly hard to compare "wealth" over long time scales in recent history. Go back a few hundred years, then things are actually pretty flat as far back as you look.