Post AzOw0OO7lQhoZt1AJs by Phosphenes@mastodon.social
(DIR) More posts by Phosphenes@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #AzOgPhlXG06WeK14FM by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-10-20T10:09:12Z
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I really do not understand "The Line" living in NYC, one of the more dense cities in the world, every day I appreciate the way we've solved the problems created by having so many people in one place. And every day I see dozens of ways we could do it better. But each new idea in urban planning has many interdependent impacts. Even ideas that sound wonderful can have perverse consequences. Urban Density is a body of knowledge developed over thousands of years of human history. 1/
(DIR) Post #AzOgixUT17uAv9DIPY by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-10-20T10:12:40Z
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It's critical that "solutions" to problems like housing, transportation, urban ecology, etc have been tested not just in a computer simulation but by people who have lived with all of these ideas in real cities and who know what really happens. Designing a city like a giant appliance is madness. This was the insight of Jane Jacobs: catastrophic development always risks catastrophic failure. To make futuristic densities the city must evolve in conversation with human activity. 2/
(DIR) Post #AzOgyXTpUTNKsuLQX2 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-10-20T10:15:29Z
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This isn't to say you can't ever think big. In fact, it's important to strive to implement big plans, but the process where they are transformed and adapted to fit the living mess that is any city is kind of the whole point?I want to see the city of one billion people. Nobody knows how to build it yet. It must grow. 3/3
(DIR) Post #AzOh400opub6p6NXsW by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-10-20T10:16:29Z
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"The Line" is a car-free utopia and somehow everyone who ought to love that hates it.
(DIR) Post #AzOhoEoC9j1M2BWRk0 by outsidecontext@fosstodon.org
2025-10-20T10:24:48Z
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@futurebird IMHO it's rather a dystopia, that happens to be car-free.
(DIR) Post #AzOhuUVUhcbYSXkzSa by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-10-20T10:25:58Z
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@outsidecontext I don't get it AT ALL.
(DIR) Post #AzOiFW1oF3fpG5thEO by TheSecondVariation@graz.social
2025-10-20T10:29:41Z
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@futurebird You might be interested in Geoffrey West "Scale: the universal laws of growth, innovation, sustainability, and the pace of life in organisms, cities, economies, and companies." In his research he observes that citties don't perform as well in scaling as biological organisms. There is no clear conclusion as of why that is but well everybody who lived in a city has some ideas I figure.
(DIR) Post #AzOiIP34eG2mTqrjYO by quinn@social.circl.lu
2025-10-20T10:30:13Z
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@futurebird it's what happens to a person if people can't ever say no to them. Criticism is vital to human hearth.
(DIR) Post #AzOiQsbGf0LERvtxEu by outsidecontext@fosstodon.org
2025-10-20T10:31:48Z
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@futurebird I mean that I don't think that "The Line" was supßposed to be car-free utopia. Yes, it is car-free, which is great. But overall a lot of the entire concept of that city feels really dystopian.
(DIR) Post #AzOitrMWLFI70Zp3Eu by magicalthinking@noauthority.social
2025-10-20T10:37:07Z
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@quinn @futurebird Boston’s “green way” Was a similar development.
(DIR) Post #AzOiv26lsF4Ics10KG by StephanMatthiesen@troet.cafe
2025-10-20T10:37:13Z
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@futurebird Is it not just a way to get rid of a lot of money? In Saudi Arabia there is soooo much money and everything that's being built there is totally oversized and uneconomic. A friend just travelled through Saudi Arabia and everything is just weird. For The Line and similar projects they first had to build completely new normal cities just to house all the workers.It's not meant to be practical, but to show wealth.
(DIR) Post #AzOjHlp8aKlCmUbpb6 by alec@perkins.pub
2025-10-20T10:41:07Z
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@futurebird exactly. Cities are complex, chaotic systems relying on a collective network of individuals that emerge and flow within a space. The Line is a physical manifestation of rigid, dominating order with no interconnection. Antithetical in theory and morphology to what makes a city work.
(DIR) Post #AzOjO1s3ppdqHuxe1Q by djac@aus.social
2025-10-20T10:42:27Z
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@futurebird Agree completely. The Line, to me, is the ultimate failure to appreciate the complexity of even mediocre urban planning, or the idea that a city is (and must be) in constant flux, and a product of its residents.There are apparently people for whom a "city" is supposed to be a line item in their CV, representing some sort of abstract art to be appreciated from above. These people need to find a different vocation.
(DIR) Post #AzOkTiNhJI8bX829su by JamesWidman@mastodon.social
2025-10-20T10:54:42Z
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@futurebird i mean compared to a grid, a line just trivially increases travel time to most of the possible destinations
(DIR) Post #AzOkZW7VoF63FBEJdY by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-10-20T10:55:47Z
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@JamesWidman Do people hate being near things?
(DIR) Post #AzOkqpi8E0wkvTcDBY by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-10-20T10:58:53Z
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@JamesWidman Let's say they build the line. The temptation to just... stick a shop just outside of it in the empty desert but close to so many people (let's assume people go live in it for some reason too) will be intolerable. The enforcement needed to keep secret shops hidden in the rocks just outside the line from cropping up will be immense. And why commute when you could pitch a tent right by your work in a little hole just outside the widow of your job location?
(DIR) Post #AzOl66hVL68TxlbaBU by JamesWidman@mastodon.social
2025-10-20T11:01:41Z
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@futurebird my working theory is that the king watched _snowpiercer_ and said, "let's make that, but stationary"
(DIR) Post #AzOlYfus0C7lI4TlOS by eswag@dju.social
2025-10-20T11:06:47Z
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@futurebird I'd never think of living there because of the regime in control of it. The general concept of keeping human activity as far away from the natural environment as possible is a laudable one.
(DIR) Post #AzOlw2b7q4IiIRNxI0 by temporal_spider@masto.ai
2025-10-20T11:11:01Z
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@futurebird @JamesWidman have you seen any of the several videos Patrick Boyle did about the Line? https://youtu.be/qMIA-EHS7vM?si=6dZsSgLwhQx42D3A
(DIR) Post #AzOmJYvPoSqhDa5kKu by dlakelan@mastodon.sdf.org
2025-10-20T11:15:10Z
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@futurebirdMy guess is the long term population of the earth will be around 1 Billion. In the next hundred years or so 7/8 of the population will disappear so designing 1B person cities is not a goal we should have. This will happen due to reduced birthrate, famine, and conflict induced by the inevitable decline of fossil fuel availability, and climate change. The Limits To Growth gave us the blueprint for the range of possibilities, all of them involve overshoot and collapse.
(DIR) Post #AzOmvo285a1h50T5Tk by cstross@wandering.shop
2025-10-20T11:22:09Z
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@futurebird I see The Line as a repressive authoritarian's wet-dream. For inter-district travel residents have to rely on mass transit. And the trams/trains/buses can simply go past certain stations with their doors closed if the authorities want to isolate the residents. And there's no way to route around it! Imagine how a "no kings" protest would have played out in The Line …
(DIR) Post #AzOmyXsmarYprFP1Vo by lienrag@mastodon.tedomum.net
2025-10-20T11:22:14Z
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@futurebird Didn't you just describe the Sprawl ?
(DIR) Post #AzOnr9nXqBGz5WzeRU by afeinman@wandering.shop
2025-10-20T11:29:50Z
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@cstross @futurebird It's like they watched Snowpiercer and were like, "Hmm, you know..."
(DIR) Post #AzOnrAufhAZGXvKrBo by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-10-20T11:32:33Z
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@afeinman @cstross If it's not a moving train how do you keep people from using the space to the left and right of the line?The pressure to develop will be immense. I don't even think the desert and an authoritarian government could stop it. It will be surrounded by shanty towns. Also it will need to be since they have not thought about where all of the poor people who will do all the work to keep it clean and pretty will live.
(DIR) Post #AzOoYjRJCcy251N2um by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-10-20T11:40:27Z
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@afeinman @cstross Why do rich people like to live in big cities? Let's think about it.Labor. If you want luxury you need labor. People you can hire to come do things for you! It amazes me that the people who do this the most don't seem to really understand it.
(DIR) Post #AzOoyWsYWbrOeZPssi by floatybirb@mastodon.social
2025-10-20T11:45:05Z
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@futurebird "The Line" is what you get when a guy at a party has a weird half-baked idea, but that guy is also a despotic oil tycoon so he can pay lots of people to tell him that it's a good idea that makes a lot of sense.
(DIR) Post #AzOqakuWu3gn8A8Cg4 by sewblue@sfba.social
2025-10-20T12:03:12Z
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@futurebird What make a city infastructure feel alive to me is that it is an amalgam of different choices layered over hundreds of years. Thousands of tiny choices: how thick to make a window frame, how tall above street level is the main floor. Buildings built by individuals then repurposed, styles changing over time. Untold layers built up over decades.A single mind, or even a team of minds, is not able to replicate decades of choices, to capture that humanity. Sterility reigns because it's easier to use standardized forms. Function becomes less important than ease of decision making.Planned cimmunities like this is always about control. One mind making the choices, either to earn money off the venture or control people. Everything else is window dressing, a sales job.
(DIR) Post #AzOquI65jzUbYhr2KO by Ehay2k@mastodon.social
2025-10-20T12:06:44Z
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@futurebird @afeinman @cstross That regime will just clean out the squatters using any means necessary.
(DIR) Post #AzOry8tryelO9AXQdk by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-10-20T12:18:39Z
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@fgbjr I guess I just ... I don't know. There are may mediocre or even slightly good ideas lying around... why not do one of those? Just.Why.
(DIR) Post #AzOsyG51NmseMwNDAu by Homempovo@ursal.zone
2025-10-20T12:29:50Z
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@futurebird @afeinman @cstross huh. I begin to see why they would think this design will reduce commuting. They are counting on the shanty towns.
(DIR) Post #AzOw0OO7lQhoZt1AJs by Phosphenes@mastodon.social
2025-10-20T13:03:50Z
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@futurebird @afeinman @cstross Also influence. You're practically tripping over big shots in NYC and DC. Not so much at your mansion in the Catskills.
(DIR) Post #AzOwr4JR8RYXf7wXRo by Phosphenes@mastodon.social
2025-10-20T13:13:24Z
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@futurebird @JamesWidman Yeah the obvious floor plan for an arcology is something compact like a cylinder or stacked boxes. It reduces commute time from everywhere to everywhere, and is better insulated and protected against the environment. Why someone would throw $8 trillion at an idea without this basic insight is a mystery.
(DIR) Post #AzOxOMklaroIPabVbM by henryk@chaos.social
2025-10-20T13:19:20Z
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@futurebird @afeinman @cstross Well, fuck, you're right. Here was I, a rube, thinking "why tf would you try to build it in a desert, and not in a place where humans can actually, you know, survive"?But you're absolutely right. The reason to go to a literal desert is that you get to have a Judge Dredd style Cursed Earth right outside your walls.
(DIR) Post #AzOykWDBCzO84T1Mgq by tartley@fosstodon.org
2025-10-20T13:34:27Z
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@futurebird
(DIR) Post #AzP2dLWExrNEhLluqG by gbargoud@masto.nyc
2025-10-20T14:18:07Z
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@futurebird @afeinman @cstross One thing I've heard as the appeal to the line is that basically everyone with money will own a 4x4 car for driving out into the desert and playing in the dunes, which is a lot of fun and pretty common pastime.
(DIR) Post #AzP3ntuu1rjaENu7lI by cavyherd@wandering.shop
2025-10-20T14:30:46Z
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@futurebird I presume this is the thing you're talking about?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kz5vEqdaScThey lost me at "autonomous services by 'leveraging' 'AI'."I heard "designed by world leading architects"—my dad would have died in paroxysms of laughter. He worked in construction for most of his adult life, & had nothing good to say about architects. "It may be pretty af, but you can't •build•My first thought is: the region you're building this in has no wind, is what I'm getting? >
(DIR) Post #AzP56OC8IMUHIqLLP6 by cavyherd@wandering.shop
2025-10-20T14:45:43Z
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@futurebird @outsidecontext Am I reading you correctly that you're generally in favor of this design?
(DIR) Post #AzPBvekX6UXd8mGMKG by BarneyDellar@mastodon.scot
2025-10-20T16:00:29Z
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@futurebird We were just talking about that at home. The Line is such a stupid idea, that completely misses what makes cities work.
(DIR) Post #AzPGKCeR6qA13FN5qy by oliver_schafeld@mastodon.online
2025-10-20T16:51:32Z
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The geometry of “The Line” seems nonsensical in terms of transport connections and accessibility, whether by car, train or on foot."If we randomly pick two people from the city, they will be, on average, 57 km apart. ... if we pick two random people in Johannesburg, they are only 33 km apart... The Line needs at least 86 train stations to guarantee that everyone is within walking distance of a station..."https://www.nature.com/articles/s42949-023-00115-yFrom an older post: https://mastodon.online/@oliver_schafeld/111233210224771353
(DIR) Post #AzPGlvJHB3dNNPgy1o by oliver_schafeld@mastodon.online
2025-10-20T16:56:34Z
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"Designing a city like a giant appliance is madness." — 100% agreed.Though the idea inspired at least a good book and movie based on it 📖🤓📽️🏢https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12331767-high-risehttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9LG801J-fnE
(DIR) Post #AzPbAQ2gZ4g2iztEB6 by tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org
2025-10-20T20:45:10Z
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@cstrossThere must be redundancy, there must be sufficient chaos for novelty to arise. Transportation is what most of our bodies is for. We walk and move. Alleys, cracks between buildings, sewer systems for coyotes in Los Angeles, phone poles for squirrels. Fascists want order. People need some chaos. @futurebird
(DIR) Post #AzV9tpNrYo9UaEQ2l6 by WellsiteGeo@masto.ai
2025-10-23T13:07:47Z
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@futurebird @JamesWidman Doesn't your society have "planning laws" (sometimes known as "zoning regulations", an probably many other things) designed explicitly to regulate who builds what, where and when?Which will be circumvented by the rich and powerful, like all laws.
(DIR) Post #AzVERAsp2yF4dS3ZD6 by WellsiteGeo@masto.ai
2025-10-23T13:58:40Z
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@futurebird Car free, and except for the outskirts, road free.So you don't need laws *against* cars. Anyone can drive around in their apartment as much as they want. They can even rent a large shop unit and call it a "garage" and fit a metal door in place of the supplied window.
(DIR) Post #AzbsRHEUhLVSZbi7Fo by lffontenelle@mastodon.social
2025-10-26T18:55:10Z
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@futurebird (I wholeheartedly agree with gradually more realistic testing.)The project ambitions kind of remind me of Brazil's capital city, Brasília. Its planners could never guess the super wide, road-like avenues, optimized for automobile flow, would eventually house congested traffic. (Modern urbanists will say it was obvious, but hindsight is 20/20.)