I’ve been thinking about trying to depict some of the ideas from this conversation: https://slrpnk.net/post/12735795, using a sort of flat, diagram-like style similar to this old photobash:
Though a bit more complex. The obvious answer is ‘don’t build cities in swamps’ but we already have a bunch of them, and though I don’t live there I recognize that they have a lot of unique cultural and historical value and are peoples’ homes, so I’m interested in what a solarpunk-adapted version of these would look like.
At the same time, I know basically nothing about New Orleans or similar areas, have no background in civil engineering, and no qualifications to make this except for the capability to do so using an old version of GIMP. So I’d absolutely love to identify issues, places to make improvements, and things that are missing now rather than once I’ve spent days chopping up images and finessing them into something coherent.
So what’d I get wrong? What’s unworkable, out of scale, or dangerous? What style of buildings or cultural touchstones would you like to see? What kind of plants are missing?
I think these look great! It’s definitely possible to have elevated cities and this was a common solution for cities in flood-prone areas prior to modern flood-control infrastructure like dams and levees.
I would look to real world places for inspiration. Many seaside towns reserve the first floor for parking because of possible storm surges. Obviously parking isn’t really needed in a solarpunk city, I would think about uses for this space that can either survive or be easily moved in the case of flooding. Your ideas seem fine although the marketplace would have to be thoughtfully designed to make it portable.
My city of Sacramento historically was very flood prone (and arguably still is, if the levies fail). An interesting feature of our history is that the entire existing downtown was lifted up to reduce flooding risk—this included buildings, sidewalks, streets. Everything! Kind of amazing, really. This particular strategy does leave some issues—the space under many streets is hollow and basically unused, although maybe a creative use for it exists. It also poses challenges in planting trees and building in spaces above the tunnels since they were only designed for a specific load.
Older houses in Sacramento also often have an elevated first floor with external stairs which I find charming. Historically the first floor was used for carriages but today people either park there or store other items. So a similar strategy to what you have here, except the space is more enclosed. This works well here because the city is very flat, so even during floods there is little current. Areas with hilly topography or with coastal flooding need open space on the lower floor to allow moving water to pass under without damaging the structure.
I would also look into “sponge city” concepts with bioswales, rain gardens, etc. Another possible source of inspiration is the chinampas agricultural system in Mexico. This is an extremely productive agricultural system created by alternating deeper ditches/canals with elevated areas. This allows for more ecological diversity to grow different crops. While I don’t think it’s wise to convert existing swamps to this system due to their imperiled status, swamps aren’t particularly hospitable to have in our cities, so this could be another possible strategy to deal with seasonal flooding in existing settlements.
Climate-induced flooding is going to be a major challenge in the future and I think we’ve really only begun to reckon with this new reality.
Thank you, this is really interesting! I don’t think I knew about Sacramento being lifted to reduce flooding risk, that’s fascinating! I knew there were some places with undercities due to building over old ruins (or undermining themselves with, well, mines) but I this project is really cool! The current issue makes a lot of sense - I’ve seen the stilted houses in the southeast US, where they mostly seem to use the tall open space under house as a sort of boat/car storage, and with their tides and such it makes sense they’d want as little drag as possible (probably want to tow the boat out of there if you have time). And a more enclosed (but water-survivable) lower floor makes sense for a place where the water just kind of rises up without pushing on the building.
I love sponge city concepts, they seem like one of those rare multi-win solutions in most of the implementations I’ve read about so far. This article about how New Orleans are using some of the practices is pretty cool, though given the city is below sea level I guess there’s only so much they can do.
I love the idea of referencing the chinampas agricultural system in spots where its just going to have to be wet. I’ll have to read up on this to get a better idea of how to depict it.
Thanks again!
I’m amazed the entire downtown was elevated. Do you know enough about that subject to have an opinion about elevating the Ferry Building in San Francisco? That has to be done for it to survive.