Project Civilization
Skyscrapers today - is the shortest and most effective way to provide people with comfortable and inexpensive housing. It seems logical to build a whole city consisting almost entirely of skyscrapers. Let us call this city and its construction project "Civilization".
In the "5-year Action Program for the EU"(20step.eu) in the section "Reforms in Construction" the innovations that will make the proposed high-rise buildings the most outstanding high-rise buildings in the World are listed. We list them below:
To drastically reduce the cost of housing in our innovative city, skyscrapers should be of the same type (let's say 3 different kinds) and assembled from modular structures like Lego.
It should be noted that some aspects of the city structure can be solved in the best way only if you design the whole city from scratch. Mainly these aspects include the low cost of housing, achieved through the efficiency of construction technologies. And also, for example, a top-class system of separation, collection and utilization of household waste based on pneumatic garbage chutes.
In the "5-year Action Program for the EU"(20step.eu) in the section "Reforms in Construction" the innovations that will make the proposed high-rise buildings the most outstanding high-rise buildings in the World are listed. We list them below:
- the first innovation is complete self-supply of electricity, hot water and heating. Excess electricity will be used to charge electric vehicles. This innovation makes our building truly a building of the future: heating, water heating and electricity will be generated by the earth's heat using deep horizontal drilling technology without the use of heat pumps;
- the second innovation is the construction technology: our skyscraper will be assembled from various pre-prepared blocks like a Lego set. This will significantly increase the speed of construction. By the way, the construction of the whole building should last no more than a year. At the same time, its service life should be at least a hundred years. After that it will be relatively easy to completely dismantle the building and erect a new one in its place;
- the third innovation is the relatively low cost of construction: our high-rise building will cost in the range of 100 million €, which will revolutionize the mass construction of affordable housing;
- the fourth innovation is a canteen located directly in the building with a cheap food offer. This solution will reduce electricity consumption by reducing individual cooking in the apartment. In addition, a supermarket, kindergarten, elementary school, gym and office space are planned to be located right in the building;
To drastically reduce the cost of housing in our innovative city, skyscrapers should be of the same type (let's say 3 different kinds) and assembled from modular structures like Lego.
It should be noted that some aspects of the city structure can be solved in the best way only if you design the whole city from scratch. Mainly these aspects include the low cost of housing, achieved through the efficiency of construction technologies. And also, for example, a top-class system of separation, collection and utilization of household waste based on pneumatic garbage chutes.
Basic parameters of the city:
The main parameters of the proposed skyscrapers are as follows: storey = 60 (total residential floors 50), height = 190 m, base = 45 x 45 m, number of inhabitants = 2500 people, 16 apartments of 90 square meters per floor (total 800 apartments). "Civilization" will be initially designed for comfortable living of 1 million residents. Therefore, the planned number of skyscrapers = 400 (384 for the symmetry of the object). This number of skyscrapers can be placed on a square of land with a side of 4 km. If you look at the city from above, you can determine the number of horizontal streets = number of longitudinal streets = 4. Then there will be 52 high-rise buildings along each street, 26 on each side. The distance between adjacent buildings in this case will be 88 m (between the centers of the buildings = 150 m). The buildings should be placed at an angle to each other so that the windows of the occupants of the neighboring buildings are not directly opposite. Distance between neighboring streets = 1050 m. Each street is an eight-lane highway, with four lanes in each direction of traffic + a separate lane for cyclists + a separate lane for pedestrians in each direction. As you can see in the picture, the city has nine impressive park areas, each of which will resemble the most famous central park in the United States in New York. In addition, the city itself will be located in a deserted, secluded area, surrounded by fields, forests, and mountains.
Distinctive features:
«Civilization", as a city symbolizing the future of human civilization, will be 100% vegan! The complete rejection of animal products is dictated not only by ethical but also by economic reasons. Let me remind you, even though I have said it 100 times already, that for ethical reasons one realizes that it is not good to treat other people's lives as a price per kilogram. Animals feel pain just as humans do due to the presence of a central nervous system. From an economic perspective, humans realize that animal agriculture is responsible for the lion's share of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions on a planetary scale, as well as excessive water consumption and trampling of soils. So Civilization stores will sell exclusively plant-based products. Such innovative universal products as "Mana"(drink-mana.com) and similar products will occupy a worthy place among them.
Also, our city of the future will have free electric public transportation (preferably streetcars because of their scalability and environmental friendliness or built trolleybuses). The presence of only four streets on each side of the city facilitates both the movement of traffic and the laying of all communications (cold and hot water, electricity, internet, sewerage, pneumatic garbage chute), which ensures the convenience of movement of people and an additional reduction in the cost of the city. Only a small presence of private electric cars is also envisioned, while people will mostly get around on foot, bicycles and public transportation.
The absolute majority of social institutions such as stores, canteens, kindergartens, schools, universities, hospitals, fitness centers, offices of various companies, data centers and even some industrial production will be located in the skyscrapers themselves. An average of 10 floors in each of them are set aside for this purpose.
The city will implement measures in the field of childbearing: raising children in large families will be equated to paid work with appropriate payments (see the section "700€ per month for the third and fourth child" in the "Action Program for the EU for 5 years"). Prioritized reinstatement of people back to work after the child-rearing period will also be considered;
An artificial language will be taught as a foreign language in the schools of "Civilization", claiming to be a single universal language for all mankind as a second language of communication. This language will surpass English and any other natural language by an order of magnitude in terms of ease of learning.
The city will be 100% cashless cash settlements. Mandatory tax returns as an excessive bureaucratic tool will be abolished. Taxation will be calculated automatically.
The city will practice the abandonment of paper documents and transition to fully electronic document management. Each resident will have his/her own secure e-mail where all possible correspondence will arrive. Thus, the load on regular mail will be reduced: newspapers, all paper letters will come exclusively to e-mail.
Delivery of goods ordered on the Internet will be carried out by a delivery robot under the apartment door. On the first floor of each high-rise building there will be a specialized mini-warehouse for the corresponding goods and possibly paper correspondence. The delivery robot will always stay and work inside the building and have access to the mini-warehouse. It will have two arms with tactile sensitivity to gently handle goods and correspondence and will be able to use the public elevator. When not delivering goods, the robot will wet clean the floors of the building.
The garbage separation and disposal system will be the most advanced in the world. The pneumatic garbage chute system used in the city of Helsinki (Finland) or Stockholm (Sweden, link) can be taken as an example. In this case there is no need to use garbage cans and garbage trucks, all garbage is automatically delivered to the place of its recycling. A special smartphone app will be developed to better understand what type of garbage is recycled where.
No cemetery is envisioned: a hydrogen-powered crematorium will be available for the dead.
A special smartphone app will be used for voting and referendums on all sorts of issues, detailed in the "5-year Action Program for the EU".
The city will have a strict and controlled migration policy focused on maintaining economic growth and social stability (see the relevant section in the "5-year EU Action Program").
When moving to Civilization for permanent residence, each citizen will sign a binding agreement to abide by the rules of the city.
The city will be fully self-sufficient in electricity, hot water and heating. All these types of energy will be produced from the heat of the Earth using deep horizontal drilling technology without heat pumps (see the section "Energy Reforms" in the "5 Year Action Program for the EU").
Realtors with their price premiums will be absent as a class. There will be one single bureau for the resettlement of citizens in the city. A centralized web-based apartment search service should replace all unnecessary layers. This will ensure the convenience of apartment search and regulated rates. At the same time, each rental unit should be accompanied by 3D models of its interior, as well as 3D exteriors of the building itself and the surrounding area.
Waste treatment facilities and garbage processing will be located near the city in an industrial zone. There will be a railway station, an autobahn exit and an airport adjacent to the city.
The cultural life of the city will also take place in the park areas. Appropriate stages and special facilities will be built there.
Due to the uniqueness of the city "Civilization" is expected an influx of tourists, who will be surprised by the abundance of green spaces.
It will be possible to expand the city while respecting its basic topology.
Also, our city of the future will have free electric public transportation (preferably streetcars because of their scalability and environmental friendliness or built trolleybuses). The presence of only four streets on each side of the city facilitates both the movement of traffic and the laying of all communications (cold and hot water, electricity, internet, sewerage, pneumatic garbage chute), which ensures the convenience of movement of people and an additional reduction in the cost of the city. Only a small presence of private electric cars is also envisioned, while people will mostly get around on foot, bicycles and public transportation.
The absolute majority of social institutions such as stores, canteens, kindergartens, schools, universities, hospitals, fitness centers, offices of various companies, data centers and even some industrial production will be located in the skyscrapers themselves. An average of 10 floors in each of them are set aside for this purpose.
The city will implement measures in the field of childbearing: raising children in large families will be equated to paid work with appropriate payments (see the section "700€ per month for the third and fourth child" in the "Action Program for the EU for 5 years"). Prioritized reinstatement of people back to work after the child-rearing period will also be considered;
An artificial language will be taught as a foreign language in the schools of "Civilization", claiming to be a single universal language for all mankind as a second language of communication. This language will surpass English and any other natural language by an order of magnitude in terms of ease of learning.
The city will be 100% cashless cash settlements. Mandatory tax returns as an excessive bureaucratic tool will be abolished. Taxation will be calculated automatically.
The city will practice the abandonment of paper documents and transition to fully electronic document management. Each resident will have his/her own secure e-mail where all possible correspondence will arrive. Thus, the load on regular mail will be reduced: newspapers, all paper letters will come exclusively to e-mail.
Delivery of goods ordered on the Internet will be carried out by a delivery robot under the apartment door. On the first floor of each high-rise building there will be a specialized mini-warehouse for the corresponding goods and possibly paper correspondence. The delivery robot will always stay and work inside the building and have access to the mini-warehouse. It will have two arms with tactile sensitivity to gently handle goods and correspondence and will be able to use the public elevator. When not delivering goods, the robot will wet clean the floors of the building.
The garbage separation and disposal system will be the most advanced in the world. The pneumatic garbage chute system used in the city of Helsinki (Finland) or Stockholm (Sweden, link) can be taken as an example. In this case there is no need to use garbage cans and garbage trucks, all garbage is automatically delivered to the place of its recycling. A special smartphone app will be developed to better understand what type of garbage is recycled where.
No cemetery is envisioned: a hydrogen-powered crematorium will be available for the dead.
A special smartphone app will be used for voting and referendums on all sorts of issues, detailed in the "5-year Action Program for the EU".
The city will have a strict and controlled migration policy focused on maintaining economic growth and social stability (see the relevant section in the "5-year EU Action Program").
When moving to Civilization for permanent residence, each citizen will sign a binding agreement to abide by the rules of the city.
The city will be fully self-sufficient in electricity, hot water and heating. All these types of energy will be produced from the heat of the Earth using deep horizontal drilling technology without heat pumps (see the section "Energy Reforms" in the "5 Year Action Program for the EU").
Realtors with their price premiums will be absent as a class. There will be one single bureau for the resettlement of citizens in the city. A centralized web-based apartment search service should replace all unnecessary layers. This will ensure the convenience of apartment search and regulated rates. At the same time, each rental unit should be accompanied by 3D models of its interior, as well as 3D exteriors of the building itself and the surrounding area.
Waste treatment facilities and garbage processing will be located near the city in an industrial zone. There will be a railway station, an autobahn exit and an airport adjacent to the city.
The cultural life of the city will also take place in the park areas. Appropriate stages and special facilities will be built there.
Due to the uniqueness of the city "Civilization" is expected an influx of tourists, who will be surprised by the abundance of green spaces.
It will be possible to expand the city while respecting its basic topology.
Cost, construction time, payback:
The cost of building such a city can be roughly estimated based on the cost of its high-rise buildings, not exceeding 100 million € and the number of these buildings. Thus the total cost of the city should be 384 [total buildings] x 100 million € = 38.4 billion €. This is a sum that many of today's billionaires can afford.
If we hire an army of 19,200 construction workers (50 at a time for each high-rise building) and pay them an average of 5,000€/month (gross), the salary costs would amount to 1.15 billion € per year. All the buildings are supposed to be erected simultaneously using prefabricated prefabrication technology. The construction period of the whole city should not exceed three years.
The main income of investors will consist of rent. The cost of one apartment can be calculated as follows: 38.4 billion € [total investment] / ((800 [total apartments in one building of 90 square meters] + 160 [equivalent through apartments of 90 square meters for commercial real estate]) x 384 [total buildings]) = 104.000 €. If we define the net income from renting out each apartment and commercial property as 500 €/month (for 90 sq.m.) or 6.000 €/year, the return on investment will come in 17.4 years. Investors will also own generating capacities (electricity and heat) and other facilities on the territory of the city, which will increase the return on investment.
If we hire an army of 19,200 construction workers (50 at a time for each high-rise building) and pay them an average of 5,000€/month (gross), the salary costs would amount to 1.15 billion € per year. All the buildings are supposed to be erected simultaneously using prefabricated prefabrication technology. The construction period of the whole city should not exceed three years.
The main income of investors will consist of rent. The cost of one apartment can be calculated as follows: 38.4 billion € [total investment] / ((800 [total apartments in one building of 90 square meters] + 160 [equivalent through apartments of 90 square meters for commercial real estate]) x 384 [total buildings]) = 104.000 €. If we define the net income from renting out each apartment and commercial property as 500 €/month (for 90 sq.m.) or 6.000 €/year, the return on investment will come in 17.4 years. Investors will also own generating capacities (electricity and heat) and other facilities on the territory of the city, which will increase the return on investment.