I've been thinking about trying to depict some of the ideas from this conversation: https://slrpnk.net/post/12735795, using a sort of flat, diagram-like style similar to this old photobash:
Though a bit more complex. The obvious answer is 'don't build cities in swamps' but we already have a bunch of them, and though I don't live there I recognize that they have a lot of unique cultural and historical value and are peoples' homes, so I'm interested in what a solarpunk-adapted version of these would look like.
At the same time, I know basically nothing about New Orleans or similar areas, have no background in civil engineering, and no qualifications to make this except for the capability to do so using an old version of GIMP. So I'd absolutely love to identify issues, places to make improvements, and things that are missing now rather than once I've spent days chopping up images and finessing them into something coherent.
So what'd I get wrong? What's unworkable, out of scale, or dangerous? What style of buildings or cultural touchstones would you like to see? What kind of plants are missing?
::: spoiler I want you to play the FOSS game Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead. You will learn a lot about this kind of thing based on that game's complexity. It is enormous is scope and unlike anything else you've ever played. The game devs do not have a totally solid grasp of fabrication trades in how some elements are used, but when it comes to the ideas of complex survivalists and resource utilization, the game will help you considerably.
First off, boating is a losing situation in the real world. Boats are super expensive and require a ton of maintenance constantly. You never own a boat; you own a money pit to maintain.
Similarly, a ropeway or tram requires massive industrial equipment to service and maintain. If the thing does not exist in poor areas, there is a reason. Working in heavy industry would teach you a lot about this. I've done it for a time. Every heavy bearing must be serviced by someone regularly. When that bearing is up high, has heavy loads, and is life critical, servicing and replacing it is a major operation. The economic/environmental footprint of things in this mechanism are massive as well. It really comes down to the metallurgy and precision purity requirements for safety at scale. These are massively wasteful operations because errors and variability cost lives.
If you live in an area with flowing water, at small scales, it is the cheapest and most powerful form of continuous mechanical power. If I do not have effective flowing water, I would be looking at gravity potential for power by making a water battery. Pump water up using excess solar or other forms and let it fall back down to generate or for other uses. Likewise, rainwater is a valuable resource.
Places in a major river flood delta typically have unbelievably good soil if it can be accessed. This is not ideal for modern industry scale farming, so you do not see this in the USA around New Orleans, but this is why the Nile was such a massive boon for ancient Egypt, and why the fertile crescent was a thing 10k years ago. Anyone trying to be much more self sufficient would be utilizing the potential for these soils. They would also likely have a small local foundry, forge, and kiln for bricks and pottery. Ways of utilizing the heat from these facilities would be interesting, or indeed the use of solar collectors for heat is interesting.
As the future approaches, you will likely find that everything in the present is oversimplified. The future is about finding a balance between technology, waste, and utilizing the excess. Eventually, one day, in a VERY distant future, biology is the ultimate technology. Almost everything we think of as advanced technology is possible with biology alone. However, accessing this level of technology will require a nearly complete understanding of all of science. This will happen one day, if we survive ourselves, but that is millennia away.
All industrial processes used presently have an unsustainable future within less than 100k years. The only way we can survive beyond this relatively short timeframe is if we manage to use biotechnology that can exist well within all of the elemental cycles. This will likely mean space based resource acquisition and processing as the only viable industrial potential. Indeed, I believe planets are not even the future of life and humanity in the very long term as planetary gravitational differentiation is an enormous tax on resource availability, but that is tangential here. My point is that, if you can picture the very distant future clearly, any point between now and then should fall along the line of progression that leads to that future. - Think big; and be a positive futurist.
I just want to back up this statement. OP, this is the exact reason why having a boat is a flex. Nature is constantly assaulting everything man-made in this world, and water is by far the most destructive element in that fight.
I'll look into Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead though to be honest, I don't really play games. I might be able to convince my SO who does to take a look though - I sometimes watch them play.
I've heard the wisdom around boats before, but I was thinking of houseboats because that's a thing some people do IRL, and I like to include different lifestyles in the art when I can. TBH, given some of the drama I've read around rich people trying to get houseboats banned from mooring in public waterways near their private beaches, I was under the impression it was an economical way to live, though that might just be the case in some modern-day ultra-expensive coastal cities.
Ropeways are something I mostly know from ski mountains (my area is lousy with them) but I was surprised to learn about how much they're used elsewhere for public transit - rich areas like the Alps definitely use them, but they seem to show up a bunch in the Middle East, South East Asia and Central America, where I don't know that they necessarily guarantee rich surroundings (there was a somewhat famous rescue a year or so back in Pakistan when one broke while high over a valley). I don't doubt the mechanical complexity (see: recent accidents), and I'll admit I'm probably too fond of them as a concept for steady public transit that crosses rough terrain well, but I don't know that alternatives like entire train lines or buses would have a lower impact. For all I know they do. I aim to balance the environmental footprint (including largely unseen parts like manufacturing and maintenance) against depicting places people might like to live.
100% with you on the fertility of the soil in river basins, and depictions of homesteads/uses of heat.
I respect folks who can picture the very long long term future, but to be honest, even positive depictions of it don't feel very actionable to me. I'm not a scientist, researcher, inventor, so the hundred-thousand-year future feels pointlessly out of reach, especially with how bad things seem likely to get in the near term. I want to make stuff that inspires at least a little hope and ambition for today and tomorrow - and to depict scenes that make people think think, “why aren’t we doing that?” or “could that work?” I think the aspirational goal is the same, I'm just more focused on doing the best we can in the next few years and emphasizing any positive progress over perfection.
Thanks for all your input, I really appreciate it
I appreciate that actionable near term and like to see what you're thinking. My perspective is largely forced by my physical disability; where I am deeply aware of the limitations of the present. While you're seemingly focused on a hope for a better near term, I am looking to a point where problems like mine are not problems at all.
I think you might find this rather interesting about that future: planets are round... /s LOL jk. The roundness from gravity is part of the differentiation process for resources. Planets are truly resource scarce due to differentiation. The vast majority of resources are inaccessible in the center of the planet. This is actually the primary reason we struggle at our present global wealth and scale. The moment humanity has access to space based resources from just a few near earth objects, everything about resources and wealth will be turned on its head. There are near Earth objects that are known to be planetesimal core remnants. These are already concentrated wealth. The USA's space efforts focus on alpha stupidity, but Japan focuses specifically on space based resource extraction and exploration. While the future may seem bleak, and the implications of space based resources and the upheaval of the present systems will inevitably cause chaos, everything about the present will become antiquated within a couple of decades. The move to space based industry will happen astonishingly quickly. The quick increase in wealth will fuel an age of scientific research and development unlike the present. Moving humans into space will require development of closed loop elemental cycles. The overall implications are enormous. We are on the cusp of accessing that future with large reusable rockets. The car was patented in the 1890's by Benz, but it did not reach the poor until the late 1920's when Ford made them cheaply enough to be accessible. Those that think in terms of increasing accessibility are the ones that change eras, or can under the right circumstances.
Anyways, these are the more near term ideas that are the next major stepping stone to the future. Planets are prisons of misery. We are presently still in the stone age; the stone age of silicon.