The Earth is getting smaller and more interconnected decade-by-decade, 100 years ago, it would
have taken someone on the west coat two weeks to get to Germany— I got there in about
a day, but let’s go some steps further and ask; what if the whole Earth functioned as
a single city?
First, we would have to be a bit loose with our definition of a “city”, cities are
dense urban areas, often surrounded by suburban zones, but we’re going to take a different
approach, as we will not be urbanizing the whole Earth, but interconnecting it to a degree
that one could essentially commute between (for example) Spain and India.
First, we will assume that all of Earth is united under one government, or a union of
like-minded governments (similar to the EU), this will make it way easier to go to different
countries without waiting for hours at border control at every single border.
This pretty clearly also needs to be a good couple of centuries in the future, for maglev
and hyperloop technology to improve and be readily available enough to build that metro
system.
With a system like this, assuming a top speed of about 1,200 km/h, a trip from Portland
to Berlin could take a few hours.
The Earth being very big, along with the fact that there would still be independent, unmerged
cities dotting the globe, means that Earth wouldn’t be a true “city”, but at most,
perhaps, a major metropolitan area.
Perhaps a better example is a small, interconnected country, like Germany.
Going between Berlin and Frankfurt am Main is easy and quick, but will still take around
4-5 hours on the ICE, but it’s still reasonable.
Let’s not get too unambitious, though, after all, this is an imaginary scenario for hundreds
of years in the future.
With that in mind, how would this planetary mega-metropolis function?
First, this would be globalization at the biggest level we could imagine, and could
put a new perspective on things, like time zones.
Even if we adopt a universal time, it would be difficult to adapt to a new time zone so
quickly, which would involve creative ways to cheat the system, like CGPGrey-ing it,
and not adapting at all.
I doubt people would be commuting to the other side of the world, rather, the other side
of their continent, and occasionally jaunting over to the other side of the world, like
commuting around the Berlin-Brandenburg area, and occasionally taking a train to the other
side Germany, or to a neighboring country.
Cars could also be useful, but only flying cars traveling faster that the Concorde, to
make things easier.
One could also easily thwart the seasons, if you’re too cold, all you would need to
do is spend a few hours on the metro and go the a different hemisphere [the next station
is: Brisbaine— doors to my left].
Obviously, tourism would skyrocket, but probably only at first, with it steadily dying down.
Perhaps a trip to a far away land might be less appealing, knowing you could go any weekend,
like me going to Seattle.
This, however, would still be great for business, and hotels would obviously still be in use.
Though this would probably be a time when physically being somewhere doesn’t matter
as much, it would also be much easier to assemble a gathering somewhere (we’re going to need
a bigger VidCon).
Some of the challenges in this world would be, there would potentially be some struggles
with diseases and wildlife, as diseases would be difficult to quarantine properly, and invasive
plants and animals could be taken anywhere.
Other than that, just ask someone who vehemently hates globalization and/or immigration.
What about airports?
I mean, why take a 12-hour flight to somewhere you can now reach in a couple hours?
Obviously, commercial flights may not be the norm (Belgium already has no domestic flights),
but that doesn’t mean they’ll go away.
Looking at North America, we see very much the opposite, as it’s way easier to spend
a four-hour flight from Los Angeles to Chicago, than a 40-hour train ride with Amtrak, but
people still ride Amtrak, so some might take fast planes as an alternative.
Though, if we’re talking Star Trek age, we probably should be talking about spaceports
(if we haven’t built ourselves a space elevator yet).
Would a true Earth City ever exist?
Perhaps, but most likely not in our lifetimes.
In the end, it would (at least at first) be more like our current cities, just so interconnected
that one could go to the other side of the world in a few hours on a hyperloop at a “modest”
speed of 1,200 km/h, though they can still go much faster, shrinking our world even further.
The overall goal of a city, though, is to be a compact space to fit everything into
one area, without spreading everything else, so, don’t think of a fully urbanized Earth,
think more of dense, interconnected urban cores surrounded by empty areas.
We would always be wrong, though.
Thanks for watching, and I hope you enjoyed this video.
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What do you think a city on a planetary scale could look like?
Leave your thoughts in the comments below!