Hey There!
Welcome to Life Noggin!
About two-thirds of the American population lives in a city.
Sure, the convenience and excitement are great, but city living can be rough.
Ya know...because some cities can look like this…
But how can we make this better?
I’m thinking a beautiful utopia from scratch.
Best city ever.
My friend Brian from Real Engineering is here to help me with this video!
So Brian, let’s give it a go, shall we?
How Can We Make The Perfect City?
First things first, location.
We’ll want somewhere with a good water supply, so near a lake would be great.
Somewhere scenic obviously with moderate but not extreme seasons.
We’ll want our city to be small enough to avoid lots of congestion and overcrowding,
but still large enough to have all the amenities us city folk know and love.
Let’s say 25 square miles/65 sq km and about half a million people.
A square, 5m x 5m/8k x 8k grid layout would make the city super easy to navigate.
We’d have timely, efficient subways running in straight lines, criss-crossing under the
city.
But above ground, transportation would be limited to bike paths and walkways.
A car-less city may sound a bit extreme but cities like Paris are already losing expressways
to favor bikes and walking.
This keeps citizens healthier and reduces pollution.
Solar panels and wind turbines outside the city and on top of buildings would also lessen
emissions and help our utopian city stay green.
A city with like no pollution sounds ideal.
The city that i currently live in...is very smokey! *Coughs*
We get it! You vape!
Our buildings would also follow this eco-friendly path.
We’d construct a densely-packed city with a mix of green office high-rises and residential
buildings.
Vienna does this to help reduce transport time and to keep the city feeling home-y.
All our buildings would be nice to look at and skyscrapers would be covered with vertical
gardens, like they are in Singapore.
People could just reach out their window and pick some veggies for their salad or some
flowers for their loved ones.
Or gather all the tomatoes and throw them at bad comedians.
Whichever you’d prefer.
We’d also want to put a lot of focus on the social aspects of our city, making it
as enjoyable as possible.
Think good schools, fun extracurricular activities, and close-knit communities.
speaking of, does anyone wanna join my hot air balloon petting zoo? Space is very limited.
The legal system would favor rehabilitation
over punishment.
Prisons are super expensive and have very high re-incarceration rates, so we’d focus
on treating offenders to keep our city’s population safe and sound.
We’d also keep our city green with street lamps that have sensors
to adjust their brightness depending on how many people are out and about, like they do
in Amsterdam.
In order to keep the cost of living down, the government would construct many of the
apartment buildings and offer them up for sale at low costs.
80% of people living in Singapore live in these type of government buildings and it
supposedly fosters a nice sense of community and belonging.
So why haven’t we created the perfect city yet?
On paper, it doesn’t sound that hard.
But the execution would definitely be costly and require a lot of government collaboration.
It’s hard to put a price on a hypothetical city, but based on the costs of other cities
constructed from the ground up, it could be anywhere from $20-40 billion.
So, not cheap.
One thing’s for sure though, if we could get this utopian city funded and up and running,
it’d be one amazing place to live.
What type of amenities would you want in a perfect city?
also i'm gonna head to the deli down the street, so let me know if you want anything.
Thank you so much to Brain from Real Engineering for helping me with this video.
He makes super informative videos answering tons of questions about engineering and the world around you.
so go check out his channel and tell em Blocko sent you!
As always, my name is Blocko, this has been Life Noggin, don't forget to keep on thinking!