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Comment by parsimo2010 | Hacker News Reader

parsimo2010

This is a terrible design. A linear layout removes a degree of freedom compared to a normal city. And it doesn’t even look cool to balance the impracticality. Not that I was planning on moving to KSA, but if they pursue this I will just be further convinced that they are fumbling around trying to modernize their country without any idea of what they actually need.

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They forgot to put in an ocean water pump that will pump water 100 miles upland in order to than have a nice saltwater river meander between the two buildings flow back to the ocean.

Are you thinking they could structure it internally like, say, Snowpiercer ? No-one is going to be able to go outside the box to move in the second spatial dimension.

On the contrary the article says this..

"The designs revealed today for the city's vertically layered communities will challenge the traditional flat, horizontal cities and create a model for nature preservation and enhanced human livability,"

There's a reason houses aren't built like grain silos.

This article and digital rendering has seemingly managed to convince you otherwise.

The reaaon is that those houses are not built in the desert. Your point is invalid.

You have to protect the plants from the drought and humans from sandstorms. You can not cover a km wide 100m tall city, it has to be 200m x 500m. (numbers are arbitrary, but it has to be compact and as always, biger is cheaper, if 200x200 already covered "up" it is.

But of course the whole idea is just "clickbait".

It really doesn't seem practical though. Instead of a 20 minute metro trip to the other side of town, you're looking at a 2 hour ride...

No the article says it's a 20 minute ride to the other side of the city.

Next you're going to say that a sky bridge 300m above the ground with a shin high guard rail is impractical.

As described in OP:

> A transport system running the length of the megastructure would be designed to connect both ends of the city within 20 minutes.

It would take a 500 km/h train to cover 170 km in 20 minutes. I think only maglevs [1] approach that speed.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglev

It would take more than 20 minutes if it had to stop in the middle. So, I guess it stops only at the ends?

I suppose so? The Shanghai maglev train [2] might be the only high-speed maglev in operation [3]. The train has a cruising speed of 431 km/h, but averages 250 km/h in actual operation — covering 30 km in 8 minutes with no stops in the middle.

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_maglev_train

[3]: Maglevs in Beijing, Changsha, Incheon, and Aichi Prefecture all operate at ~100 km/h or less.

The article is wrong

I disagree. It’s time we tried something new rather than the organically outward expanding cities we’ve always done. I’m all for this and if nothing else we will learn something from the experience at a cost trivial compared to the wars that we have been fighting in contemporary times.

It might actually be good for transport, you could run one set of rails along the entire length and just jump on/off at your desired station. Probably the real-estate in the middle would be the most expensive because it will still be the hub of the city.

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