Floating cities

[Spaceception]

So we've talked about vertical cities; cities that are ridiculously tall, but what about floating cities? I mean, unlimited water, assuming you can filter it, huge amounts of sunlight and wind, assuming it's sunny and windy, which it almost always is, and unlimited food, aquaponical food sources that farm for fish, and grow plants at the same time, floating cities are really cool, and can also help with overpopulation, instead of cramming people into tall buildings, put them on the ocean with mega flat boats! We could also have this on cities on land, so coastal cities don't go under due to rising sea levels. So what do you guys think about it?

http://inhabitat.com/7-futuristic-floating-cities-that-could-save-humanity/

[max_creative]

Good idea. What will you do with the salt? And what if it sinks?

[Spaceception]

8 minutes ago, max_creative said:

Good idea. What will you do with the salt? And what if it sinks?

Seasoning

You engineer it so it doesn't, and you have robots to do daily inspections, as well as enough boats to evacuate everyone in the case it does.

[Andem]

You have unlimited fish, you can grow algeae under the city, The anchor point can be used for deep sea exploration, It's a win-win-win!

Edited April 19, 2016 by Andem

[Spaceception]

1 minute ago, Andem said:

You have unlimited fish, you can grow algeae under the city, The anchor point can be used for deep sea exploration, It's a win-win-win!

Well, in order to keep from shrinking the fish population to the point where it's expensive, the aquaponical floating farms will also breed them, but the algae will be able to get the CO2 out of the atmosphere so yay!!

It'll be expensive, but worth it.

[HebaruSan]

Overpopulation is already solving itself, with negative growth in many first-world countries.

The closest things we'll see are cruise ships...

Quote

MS Independence of the Seas is a Freedom-class cruise ship operated by the Royal Caribbean cruise line that entered service in April 2008. The 15-deck ship can accommodate 4,370 passengers and is served by 1,360 crew.

... or clusters of fishing slave-ships that never leave international waters:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/24/world/the-outlaw-ocean.html

https://www.propublica.org/podcast/item/half-bemused-half-really-afraid-what-its-like-reporting-on-the-high-seas

[YNM]

Your negative growth are nothing to our ease of delivery. (or at least that's the way it looks like - "first-world" encourages families and child while "third-world" encourages less child, and there's more "third-world" than "first-world".)

Anyway, while I kind of question what the structure would have to be made of, this one actually is a better idea resource-wise, because everything isn't (or rather, can't) be centralized, the "cities" would be more like villages - which means smaller requirement for each settlement, and transportation is the last of your concern.

If there's any inherent problem that'd be the fact that sea isn't that calm... What if a typhoon hits ? Would it be harsher or not ?

Edited April 19, 2016 by YNM

[Bill Phil]

I'm pretty sure its not almost always sunny. It can be pretty sunny, though...

Only issue is if we anchor them or make them mobile..

[todofwar]

There actually have been floating cities in the past, I think Russia had one at some point (might still be around). The main issue with these kinds of things is environmental impact vs building a similar scale city on land. Cruise ships can be rather nasty in terms of their waste that gets dumped into the ocean. Any plastics would have to be carefully disposed of/recycled, and you would want some wastewater treatment to avoid algal blooms surrounding you.

[kerbiloid]

Any city with such population and production capacities would require much more water than it displaces with its weight.
→ It anyway requires huge pumps to upload this water and energy to power these pumps.
→ No additional gain if place it in water rather than near it.
→ It can be a district of a near-sea but on-ground mega-city.
 

Edited April 20, 2016 by kerbiloid

[PB666]

On 4/19/2016 at 1:58 PM, Spaceception said:

Seasoning

You engineer it so it doesn't, and you have robots to do daily inspections, as well as enough boats to evacuate everyone in the case it does.

 

On 4/19/2016 at 1:47 PM, Spaceception said:

So we've talked about vertical cities; cities that are ridiculously tall, but what about floating cities? I mean, unlimited water, assuming you can filter it, huge amounts of sunlight and wind, assuming it's sunny and windy, which it almost always is, and unlimited food, aquaponical food sources that farm for fish, and grow plants at the same time, floating cities are really cool, and can also help with overpopulation, instead of cramming people into tall buildings, put them on the ocean with mega flat boats! We could also have this on cities on land, so coastal cities don't go under due to rising sea levels. So what do you guys think about it?

http://inhabitat.com/7-futuristic-floating-cities-that-could-save-humanity/

The first image looks comes strait out of stargate atlantis. The stargate city begins the series 300 meters underwater, and quickly fails. 

The problem with building up is that bouyancy pushes the street level down, eventually its not street any more but wading pool, like venice.
You can consider venice a pre-prototypic
 

[PB666]

On 4/19/2016 at 3:01 PM, HebaruSan said:

Overpopulation is already solving itself, with negative growth in many first-world countries.

The closest things we'll see are cruise ships...

... or clusters of fishing slave-ships that never leave international waters:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/24/world/the-outlaw-ocean.html

https://www.propublica.org/podcast/item/half-bemused-half-really-afraid-what-its-like-reporting-on-the-high-seas

Europe is not overpopulated, its over-educated, and thus the need to substantiate oneself through progeny production is not needed. Plus birth control is easy to get.
America is certainly not overpopulated and yet without constant immigration and 2nd generation fertility rates our population would also fall.

[tater]

They'll start working on these right after Mars One has it's millionth colonist land to shear valuable wool off their primary economic driver, Marsicorns. 

[rtxoff]

The sea is not always that calm like in the OP's pictures. What will happen to such a city when this happens:

[Kertech]

why not float it in air then (I want cloud city!!!)

[Stargate525]

26 minutes ago, gpisic said:

The sea is not always that calm like in the OP's pictures. What will happen to such a city when this happens:

Anything city-sized would be perfectly fine. It would be much bigger than any wavelength and, while you might get some jostling, it would actually just feel like what a ship does normally. The biggest wave you'll be likely to see is 70 feet (some rogue waves appear to get up to 90). Wavelengths and size and width of the city would matter, but if it's bigger than a wavelength in each direction, you shouldn't really feel shifting at all.

And unless the city is anchored, there's an easier answer; you move out of the way.

[Spaceception]

26 minutes ago, Stargate525 said:

Anything city-sized would be perfectly fine. It would be much bigger than any wavelength and, while you might get some jostling, it would actually just feel like what a ship does normally. The biggest wave you'll be likely to see is 70 feet (some rogue waves appear to get up to 90). Wavelengths and size and width of the city would matter, but if it's bigger than a wavelength in each direction, you shouldn't really feel shifting at all.

And unless the city is anchored, there's an easier answer; you move out of the way.

Plus if you play around with buoyancy, you can move with the waves, and for something a couple miles wide, it won't feel too bad.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RP_FLIP

[todofwar]

3 hours ago, Kertech said:

why not float it in air then (I want cloud city!!!)

Move to Venus

[AngelLestat]

Floating sea cities, had some pros and cons.

Pros:  you dont need to pay taxes or land, you can be outside of country regulations if you are in international waters (which might bring some investments)

Cons:  extra cost to protect from corrosion, sea life,  waves (once you stop the full wave in the edges 15m wall, it does not continue under you) and good anchors to resist hurricanes. It is all doable but it counter in some way your pros.

Things that are no pros neither cons:
You dont have easy access to land or close cities, at least you leave very close with a permanent bridge to connect your floating city, in that case you lose some benefits but you also lose some drawbacks.
You get an average of cheap products if you allow free market, some products will cost more because you are not close of nothing or with easy access, but all the product that require seaships, those would be cheaper.
Your city should be large enough to guaranty that you cover most of your people interest.

But a vertical land city should be cheaper.. because the cost of land is not high if you build up.

-----------------------------------------

A floating atmosphere city should be possible in earth, you need to have a minimum altitud of 6000m and with kite gradient propulsion to dodge mountain ranges.
I know how can be build such bring city without hangar and dealing with wings.

 

[Nibb31]

1 hour ago, AngelLestat said:

Pros:  you dont need to pay taxes or land, you can be outside of country regulations if you are in international waters (which might bring some investments)

If it's a city, then it will need infrastructure, laws, and public services that are going to need to be paid for. There is no such thing as a community with no taxes.

BTW, there is already the Principality of Sealand, which is currently looking to expand.

http://www.sealandgov.org/sealand-news-1/help-shape-the-future-of-the-principality-of-sealand

 

Edited April 21, 2016 by Nibb31

[RainDreamer]

I wonder if being so far out in the sea would help them avoiding being hit too badly by things like earthquakes and tsunamis as well. Though thunderstorms and cyclones are different stuff.

[Frybert]

Thread reopened. I have removed some blatantly political content. The line between science and politics can get very narrow some times, but please take some extra time to consider if your post is crossing it.

[peadar1987]

Apologies for going political!

[AngelLestat]

5 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

If it's a city, then it will need infrastructure, laws, and public services that are going to need to be paid for. There is no such thing as a community with no taxes.

BTW, there is already the Principality of Sealand, which is currently looking to expand.

http://www.sealandgov.org/sealand-news-1/help-shape-the-future-of-the-principality-of-sealand

 

Countries had taxes..  this will be private, because nobody will recognize this as a country, there is also no benefit to try to pursuit that claim.
You just need to paid expenses, or rent (if you are not the owner of your department or house).  Inside the expenses comes the maintenance, security and other services.
People living this place are still citizen from their respective countries, so any injustice should be treated in those.
You can have private education and different things.. so tax are not required.
By the way.. I mention in the cons that there are many drawbacks that counter most of the pros. 

[Nibb31]

19 minutes ago, AngelLestat said:

Countries had taxes..  this will be private, because nobody will recognize this as a country, there is also no benefit to try to pursuit that claim.

If it's floating in international waters, it's considered a ship under maritime law.

If they do not fly a flag of convenience, they don't benefit from any national protection, and can be subject to acts of piracy. So you're going to need to add paramilitary protection to the list of public services. 

19 minutes ago, AngelLestat said:

You just need to paid expenses, or rent (if you are not the owner of your department or house).  Inside the expenses comes the maintenance, security and other services.

So you just include the taxes in the rent. They are still taxes.

19 minutes ago, AngelLestat said:

People living this place are still citizen from their respective countries, so any injustice should be treated in those.

No it wouldn't. You would be outside of your country's jurisdiction, so maritime law would apply. In most cases, the ship's captain is the highest authority (which makes your floating city a dictatorial regime).