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Dome City Blog 1 - An idea for higher density cities

I have been thinking a lot about what we need for new housing and cities. I have been thinking about this for a number of reasons. One reason is that the UK is critically short of housing.  The government and others are keen to see a large number of new homes built.  Personally I support this idea. Another reason was my recent visit to Changchun, China.  This is a very large city by UK standards.  The greater metro area has a population of 7.6 million while the city itself has a population of 3.9 million based on 2010 data.  That was the 5th tiime I’ve been to Changchun and I always enjoy my time there.  However, I think this is a city ruined by the car. I like to walk or cycle whenever I can.  Modern cities, for the most part, make this difficult and unpleasant.  It is difficult because of the distances involved and it is unpleasant because cars and pedestrians/cyclists don’t mix so well. In brief here is the questions I am thinking about and some of the answers that I am arriving at. What if we built a city that was housed in a geodesic dome with a diameter of 1km at the base?  A geodesic dome has the shape of a half-sphere.  It was popopularizedy R. Buckminster Fuller.  I have chosen this structural form because I understand that it is very efficient from a structural engineering point of view. I have some simple back of the envelope type calculations to see how many people this city in a dome could house.  Assume that we made the thickness of the floors separating levels as 1.5m (5 feet) and that we had clear space of 9m (29.5 feet) between levels.  This would provide 48 levels for constructing our city.   The land area at the base of this dome is 0.785 square kilometers (194 acres, 78.5 hectares).  With the 48 levels as described above the land area available within the dome is 25.3 square kilometers (6250 acres, 2530 hectares).   The population density of the the dome were the same as New York City at 27,778 people per square mile (10,716 people per square km) then it could house 271,000 people.  With a lower density of say, 10,000 people per square mile  (3860 people per square km) then it could house 97,700 people.  This lower population density figure of 10000 people per square mile is the almost the same value as for population densities of Miami,Florida and Birmingham, England.   I would suggest that there should be a significant green belt around this dome city.  I would like to suggest at least 500m of park and wild lands around the base (excepting transport links). I will continue these ideas in my next blog. Dome City - Blog 1 5 October 2014 Joe Heffernan

Cafe Culture in Gourock #Gourock #inverclyde #scotland (at Fresh Gourock)

Helen and I cycled from Kirkintilloch to Falkirk and back. The total distance was about 50km. 😊

We did a really fun hill walk today. This is Tinto Hill from the Wiston side. The walk was around 5km with 450m of elevation gain.

Reykjavik Harbour - weather was beautiful today.

Thoughts on Prague

We just came back from a break in Prague. We had a good time by walking around a lot, eating & drinking and being with each other. Given my interest in dome cities what would I take away from the visit to guide me about my dome city design. This is a list of things go liked about Prague and I would hope that these things would be available (if required) in a dome city. 1 - Great walk ability 2 - green space easily accessible from the city centre 3 - affordability 4 - friendly and honest people 5 - good public transport 6 - a lively centre in the evenings with plenty of entertainment, bars and places to eat I will discuss these things more in future blogs.

at Cardwell Bay

Dome City Blog 5 - Churches, mosques, synagogues & temples

We are coming to the end of the Easter Weekend as I write this.  Therefore, it seems appropriate for me to comment on churches, mosques, synagogues and temples within the Dome City. 

I believe that on balance religion is a power for good.  As a practicing Christian I see the merit in having a set of beliefs and guides for living that encourage me to love my neighbour, to be honest and to be trustworthy.  

If a Dome City is going to be a success it will need to be the sort of place people want to live.  Having good neighbours is one of the factors that I would list as important to making a place somewhere that I want to live.  Religion can play a role in this is 2 ways.  The first is as a guide for peaceful living and the second is the way that religion brings people together for religious observations, celebrations and works.  

Therefore, I would suggest that space be set aside for churches in the Dome City.  In my mind, the obvious place for a Dome City in the UK would be near London.  In Britian as a whole according to the Office of National Statistics, based on the 2011 census data, 59.3% stated that they are Christian, 25.1% of the population state that they have no religion, 7.2% did not respond to the question, 4.8% stated they are Muslim, 1.5% stated they were Hindu, 0.8% were Sikh, 0.5% were Jewish, 0.4% were Buddhist and 0.4% were other religions. If this were an accurate reflection of the people who chose to live in the Dome City it is clear to me that around 75% of the population would have a religious affiliation.  Of course not all of them would be regular participants in their religious community but a reasonable number would be.

The data for the above paragraph was taken from http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171776_290510.pdf 

In the spirit of interfaith pluralism I would suggest that the churches, mosques, synagogues and temples be placed close to each other, probably on the same level of the Dome City.  

In Triumph of the City by Edward Glaeser it talks about a suburb of Houston called Woodlands.  One of the things that intrigued me about this suburb is how the developer, George Phydias Mitchell,  recognised the importance of religion for promoting social capital.  The paragraph that captures this best for me has been extracted and is shown below:

One of the most interesting, and almost urban, aspects of The Woodlands’ management is its focus on social capital. The Woodlands works precisely because it is not a collection of isolated individuals; its social infrastructure has been designed to foster interpersonal connections. In 1975, Mitchell hired a Wharton-trained Lutheran minister to run The Woodlands Religious Community Incorporated, now called Interfaith, which was meant to “plan the religious community and all the human services in this new town.” The minister bought a motor scooter and followed moving vans , meeting new residents as they arrived. Interfaith made sure that The Woodlands provided appropriate space for social, particularly religious, activities. Because nothing sours an area like religiously motivated hatred, Interfaith makes sure that religious messages are kept positive. In the aftermath of the 9/ 11 attacks, Interfaith managed to get rabbis to pray for Palestinians and Islamic leaders to pray for Jews.

Glaeser, Edward (2011-03-18). Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier and Happier (pp. 181-182). Macmillan Publishers UK. Kindle Edition. 

Aside - Those interested in energy matters like I am will recognise the name "George Phydias Mitchell", this is the man credited with developing the techniques to extract natural gas from tight shales using hydraulic fracturing (fracking). - end aside

I would hope that a UK Dome City would encourage the same sort of thing taking into account the differences between American and British religious views and practices.

Joe Heffernan 6-April-2015

A boring photo of the beach before today's swim. However, it was a great swim. Lowish tide coming in. Stacey Hearl, Campbell McCall and I swam 1 mile. It took us 18 minutes to the turn around and then 33 minutes coming back. Aren't tides wonderful? Water temperature 13.6 degC #scotland #inverclyde #rwsabc #openwaterswimming #greenock #theesplanade (at The Royal West of Scotland Boat Club)