Dream Town

[talon]

Were I to build a city, and I mean total control from inception to completed results, it would not look like anything we currently have.

We're talking a completely planned community, from infrastructure outwards.

My city would start with a small range of mountains to the north with a river running through to form a chain of lakes to either the east or west, depending on prevailing winds. The primary wind farm would be opposite the lakes to catch the prevailing winds. Plains would be off to the south. In North America, this would provide optimal weather and protection from the worst storm elements.

That's the site situation.

The infrastructure would be laid down over this - the wind farm supplying power from prevailing winds, the river providing electrical power, the southern plains generating solar power, the lakes providing geothermal power. Businesses, schools, and neighborhoods would be set up to provide their own power to supplement all of this, and to teach and encourage recycling, energy efficiency and frugality, and environmental support. Waste disposal would consist of a tremendous amount of recycling and repurposing. Sewage treatment and waste run-off from businesses would closely monitored to keep it is pristine as possible.

Each resident would pay a bridge and road fee (builds and maintains bridges and roads and public transportation systems, including bike and walking roads and traffic guidance systems in all weathers), a sewage and waste fee (for water treatment and what little actual garbage they should have), a public facilities fee (builds and maintains hospital, schools, libraries, police and fire stations, park structures, government offices, monuments, shelters, and other public buildings), a public works fee (employee wages and benefits, supplies, etc. as well as city wide WiFi), a parks and gardens fee (to pay for landscaping, groundskeeping, harvesting and preserving publicly grown edibles), and an emergency fund fee (to help residents after a natural disaster).

These fees can be paid monthly or annually to a central accounting agency that would portion it out. The city government would be transparent so the residents could see where their money went and when increases were requested, would know if it was needed or not. Management and supervisory positions would be kept to a minimum since their jobs could be easily supplemented with computer assistance.

As much as possible, space would be deeply utilized, often serving multiple purposes. Where large parking lots might be needed, these would manifest as parking garages with rooftop, balcony, and wall gardens. Public buildings would also have rooftop gardens and private businesses would be encouraged to emulate this. At least 50% of public landscaping space would be devoted to edibles with residents encouraged to harvest for their own pantries - public employees would do the groundskeeping and care and would harvest and preserve the extras to sell to residents unable (or unwilling) to harvest and preserve for themselves as well as for emergencies, food banks, shelters, and to donate to other places in need.

The layout of the city would focus on the large central park: three concentric rings of park: the innermost ring would hold City Hall in the middle with a public stadium for fireworks and celebrations to the south, a series of public water parks to the west, a wind farm to the east, and a dense forest to the north encircled by a wide road, then a ring of various well kept parks encircled by a wide road, a ring of wilderness with minimal human intrusions encircled by a wide road. Outside these central rings would be 9 "fingers" of mixed commercial/residential areas with a center road that goes down the center and ends at City Hall. These "fingers" would be wedge shaped - narrower towards the center, wider as it moves away from the center. Between them would be either more wilderness areas or grain fields. There would be parks, ponds, copses, and small wilderness areas scattered liberally throughout. Commercial and residential areas would be mingled because the businesses would be small ones, often with the owner's residence located above or below the business: schools, restaurants, bakeries, butcher shops, fishmongers, clothing boutiques, gift shops, florists, carpenters, woodcarvers, home décor, hobby shops, game shops, coffee and tea shops, housecleaning services, grocers, office supply shops, bookstores, and service-oriented businesses and small offices. Ringing the outside of these "fingers" would be a mix of large crop fields (grains, mostly), larger office buildings, industrial businesses, and large chain stores and restaurants as well as small businesses catering to the employees in these businesses. The water treatment plants and larger power plants would also be located on this outer ring. Outside that final ring would be outside the city limits.

From the air, the streets would probably resemble a spider web, with circular streets periodically ringing their way out and at least 9 major straight roads bisecting each finger from City Hall outward. Within each finger, the rest of the streets would not be as orderly. These main streets (the rings and the long straight streets) would provide the rapid access to most areas and would form the hub of the public transportation system.

I think it would be pretty from ground level and the air, would be functional, would be logical and yet intensely personalizable, would be green and environmentally sound and clean, would be geared towards supporting and sustaining the residents rather than Big Business. And is probably the biggest pipedream I've ever had...

Mind you, this is an overview, not the niggly little details; a dream, not a working blueprint.

I might work out more details if I ever actually use this city in a story or something.