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It severely restricts the potential market if you do this (only travels from one skyscraper to another are supported). For instance you can just completely forg

It severely restricts the potential market if you do this (only travels from one skyscraper to another are supported). For instance you can just completely forget about Washington DC, London and Paris, and many more cities. And even in cities with skyscrapers, they tend to be clustered in one or two districts, so you can only travel within a very small part of the city. My feeling about the current push for flying cars and autonomous transport, is that when our grandchildren ask us about it, it will be in the same way as children today ask why they were still playing violins when the Titanic went down.

pilsetnieks 7y ago
Well, skyscraper to skyscraper (or helipad, or other permitted areas) would be a start. Eventually the tech could catch up - for example, with materials like these - https://phys.org/news/2019-03-acoustic-metamaterial-cancels.html https://phys.org/news/2019-03-acoustic-metamaterial-cancels.... - being developed.
- imhoguy 7y ago
  Skyscraper cable cars would be less expensive/noisy/power hungry and with more capacity. https://arstechnica.com/science/2013/02/envisioning-the-urban-skyscraper-of-2050/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2013/02/envisioning-the-urba...
  - vidarh 7y ago
    Skyscraper cable cars require them to be near enough to each other, which would limit them to far fewer city centres. London for example has very few skyscrapers, but several parts of town have some and quite a few more have a bunch of 20+ story buildings, but only two areas (City and Docklands) have many buildings like that clustered close enough for cable cars to seem potentially viable by far enough for it to possibly be interesting.
  - xvilka 7y ago
    It reminds me of Canopy from the Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space book series.
vidarh 7y ago
If going by an aim to only land them above 20th floor, then my suburb of London alone is up to 5 buildings over 20 floors, with the highest (not yet complete) at 44, and planning permission given for about half a dozen in the 20-55 floor range given. Lots of parts of London have at least one building that high,and several has buildings quite a bit taller. Not all of town would be covered, but even just the ability to get to/from a handful of central points that are on the train and tube network would be valuable even if that will prevent them from being as useful as they otherwise could. Sure,if you only allow that, then it will be a quite severely limiting factor, but places less densely populated are also more likely to have at least some suitable spots where allowing landings on lower buildings will be ok. And it doesn't need to work everywhere to be worthwhile.

pilsetnieks 7y ago

Well, skyscraper to skyscraper (or helipad, or other permitted areas) would be a start. Eventually the tech could catch up - for example, with materials like these - https://phys.org/news/2019-03-acoustic-metamaterial-cancels.html https://phys.org/news/2019-03-acoustic-metamaterial-cancels.... - being developed.

imhoguy 7y ago
Skyscraper cable cars would be less expensive/noisy/power hungry and with more capacity. https://arstechnica.com/science/2013/02/envisioning-the-urban-skyscraper-of-2050/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2013/02/envisioning-the-urba...
- vidarh 7y ago
  Skyscraper cable cars require them to be near enough to each other, which would limit them to far fewer city centres. London for example has very few skyscrapers, but several parts of town have some and quite a few more have a bunch of 20+ story buildings, but only two areas (City and Docklands) have many buildings like that clustered close enough for cable cars to seem potentially viable by far enough for it to possibly be interesting.
- xvilka 7y ago
  It reminds me of Canopy from the Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space book series.

vidarh 7y ago

If going by an aim to only land them above 20th floor, then my suburb of London alone is up to 5 buildings over 20 floors, with the highest (not yet complete) at 44, and planning permission given for about half a dozen in the 20-55 floor range given. Lots of parts of London have at least one building that high,and several has buildings quite a bit taller. Not all of town would be covered, but even just the ability to get to/from a handful of central points that are on the train and tube network would be valuable even if that will prevent them from being as useful as they otherwise could. Sure,if you only allow that, then it will be a quite severely limiting factor, but places less densely populated are also more likely to have at least some suitable spots where allowing landings on lower buildings will be ok. And it doesn't need to work everywhere to be worthwhile.