164
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What is the utilitarian purpose of artificial waterfalls?
Low-tech climate control: the waterfalls fill the air with spray, which evaporates off and cools the populace.
The Romans used to achieve a similar effect with fountains.
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125
votes
What is the utilitarian purpose of artificial waterfalls?
Still water is heaven for proliferating algae, bacteria and annoying insects like mosquitoes.
A large city with large bodies of still water is a recipe for plague spreading. Having water on the move ...
- 275k
113
votes
Accepted
In a medieval setting, how far apart should towns be?
Distances between Medieval towns varied quite widely, as did the population and size.
I think the estimate, and this is a low estimate, for England was that there were over 3,000 deserted Medieval ...
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105
votes
What circumstances could lead to city layout based on hexagons?
Optimal public transport accessibility for a zero-car city.
A city designed from the ground up should be designed so that cars are unneeded:
90% of your reasons to leave the home are serviced within ...
- 44.1k
78
votes
Accepted
Any reasons for a primal aquatic race to build land-based villages?
One word: fire. Cooking and metalworking are the first two things that pop into my mind that are made easier, if not possible, on land. While you could argue that neither is necessary for an aquatic ...
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77
votes
Random body shuffle every night—can we still function?
Society as we know it certainly could NOT function if this were the case. A couple of issues that immediately occurred to me, even more fundamental than retention of property (and retention of ...
- 10.5k
77
votes
Accepted
How to hide an urban landmark?
During WWII the city of Alexandria, in Egypt, was under menace of being bombed by the German bombers.
Since it was known that the bombing would have taken place overnight, it was decided to build in ...
- 275k
74
votes
Accepted
What makes trading cities rich?
The short answer is trade.
The larger answer is that the act of trading develops and requires a range of secondary and tertiary activities which are themselves economically significant.
Consider, ...
- 97.6k
73
votes
Accepted
A way of getting the water to the top of the tall building without electricity?
In order to get water up to the top of a building, you can either carry it manually, or you can pump it. Pumps don't have to run on electricity.
Wind-powered pumps use a windmill to power the pump, ...
- 1,954
72
votes
How big can a town get before everyone stops knowing everyone else?
The number you are looking for is not Dunbar's Number
Dunbar's number is about how many relationships you can maintain, but does not directly dictate the "sense" of knowing everyone. ...
- 87.8k
70
votes
What is the utilitarian purpose of artificial waterfalls?
Energy storage.
You use a form of energy generation with unreliable or periodic output. As a form of energy storage you pump water up into a nice big reservoir when you have surplus, then power ...
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66
votes
How to completely destroy a city, without leaving clues for humanity 4,000 years later?
Rock and clay don't burn well, leaving you with a lot of dressed stone lying around to say there was once a city here.
Fire from above implies volcanoes, as we learned from Pompeii, that's actually a ...
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66
votes
How to convince primitive tribe that cities weren’t built by gods?
I'd advise against this approach. Your character has very low chance of success. When a dogma is central to a person's religious identity, it will be believed until there is some direct personal ...
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64
votes
Accepted
How would a city styled like Venice be built with lava instead of water?
The Original
In Venice, the streets are made of water; gondolas carry people from point to point, and walkways stretching over the water allow foot traffic. The buildings in Venice are set on a ...
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62
votes
Accepted
How big can a town get before everyone stops knowing everyone else?
The number you are looking for is Dunbar's Number.
It is well-known for most primates, but only approximately for humans (between 150 and 250).
Humans of course have prodigious memory, and might be ...
- 12k
61
votes
Accepted
Is roof-hopping through a city realistic?
It’s not possible to the extent you’re hoping for.
Most modern urban areas have a fairly consistent pattern in which buildings are broken up into blocks of various dimensions and separated by roads. ...
- 8,704
60
votes
Accepted
How can a barren island state comprised of morons maintain positive GDP for decades?
not going into the discussion on "does IQ really measure intelligence or not?"
Putting in practice the word of Koalemos is deemed the highest honor in their society, therefore those with the ...
- 275k
59
votes
What is the utilitarian purpose of artificial waterfalls?
You're looking at it backwards. Nobody added artificial waterways to a city. They did what they had to do to support building a city on top of existing waterways.
Human settlements naturally spring ...
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57
votes
Accepted
Why would a modern city with a warm climate have a skyway system?
Reasons:
Skyways can be airconditioned and so cooler
Skyways can be sheltered from rain and so more pleasant
Skyways are safer than walking on the streets, where the cars are; separation of cars and ...
- 27.6k
55
votes
Accepted
Why would a flourishing city need so many outdated robots?
Why is banking and other critical systems in 2020 still running COBOL software from the 1970s?
Once you build a system, get it working and stable, why on Earth would you go through that work again?
...
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54
votes
A way of getting the water to the top of the tall building without electricity?
The oldest pump in historical records is the force pump. The book that first describes it was written between 15 and 30 B.C/B.C.E.
This is the Archimedes's screw, which is one of my favorite ancient ...
- 136k
54
votes
Random body shuffle every night—can we still function?
I actually think large cities could function but they would be very different to ours.
Your house would be near a cluster of sleeping rooms and would have a password entry since keys are not going ...
- 1,640
53
votes
How to completely destroy a city, without leaving clues for humanity 4,000 years later?
How about a catastrophic flood?
Have the city built on a large river. A landslide further up blocks the river and causes an enormous lake to form (also cutting off water supply to the city causing ...
- 77k
50
votes
How can you build cities without cement?
I would actually use... cement, because your premise is wrong:
On lifeless planets there is no organic materials such as limestone because there was never any life.
Limestone is not an organic ...
- 1,253
49
votes
How can I prevent the invention of skyscrapers?
Restriction for religious and political reasons
No building should be higher than the local religious, historical, political or symbolic buildings.
Such restrictions existed in the past, be it for ...
- 6,738
48
votes
Is a small indoor city realistic?
Yes.
Modern aircraft carriers have crews of around 5,000. It's even easier if you're supporting one fifth that many people and don't have to worry about making your building float or move at 35mph.
...
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48
votes
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Can we get rid of all illnesses by a year of Total Extreme Quarantine?
Only for SOME types of illnesses. Even then there are problems.
Some illnesses are not infectious. That means quarantine does nothing to slow them down.
(a) Genetic illnesses. For example autoimmune ...
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47
votes
Accepted
Why do people continue to live in an unfavorable location when there are significantly greener pastures?
There are a number of basic reasons the (vast) majority of people would choose to stay. There are a couple of other "flavor" reasons that you could optionally add to change "majority" to "practically ...
- 1,132
47
votes
How can you build cities without cement?
During the roman empire they didn't know modern cement, but they built "small thingy" like the Pantheon by using pozzolan, which is basically volcanic ash.
That would be a good material to use.
- 275k
46
votes
Accepted
How to completely destroy a city, without leaving clues for humanity 4,000 years later?
I have much academic experience with some of this, especially the second part of your question. I'll address a few different sides of things.
The most drastic way I can think of that could ...
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