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> The fictional population of NYC in Soylent Green (released 1973, set in 2022) was 40 million, whereas the actual population today is 8.8 million, but even 40

by NeoTar 4y ago

> The fictional population of NYC in Soylent Green (released 1973, set in 2022) was 40 million, whereas the actual population today is 8.8 million, but even 40 million would give it about the population density of Manila today and wouldn’t look like it was portrayed in the film. Another example is Isaac Asimov's Trantor, a world-wide city enclosed with globes which requires the resources of multiple agricultural worlds to sustain it. It has a population of 45 billion, and a surface area of approx. 40% that of Earth. Do the calculations, and the population density is, as Wikipedia says: "similar to the current population density of Germany or Connecticut. " I can't speak for Connecticut, but Germany certainly doesn't feel crowded. Even in central Berlin we have a huge amount of green space. Even Coruscant in Star Wars, with a population of 1 trillion people (1 000 000 000 000) has a population density less than New York City.

rsynnott 4y ago
> It has a population of 45 billion, and a surface area of approx. 40% that of Earth. I think he retconned this up a bit in later stories, after people had pointed out the problem. But yeah, it's a weirdly common problem in science fiction; for whatever reason few authors bothered to check the density of existing cities before declaring a weirdly sparse world-city.
throwaway4aday 4y ago
You could explain away the discrepancy by saying that the 45 billion number is the number of permanent residents. As the seat of a galactic empire it would likely host representatives and their staff and families from tens of thousands of worlds, would probably be a hub of interstellar trade with many merchants and the crew of their ships staying for weeks at a time, a major tourist and religious hub with billions of visitors and pilgrims, countless numbers of galactic citizens would also make the journey to petition the emperor for various things. The list could go on for a mile and could result in a much larger effective population at any one time.
chaostheory 4y ago
It’s hard to take making sense of population numbers with the use of fictional material.

by NeoTar 4y ago

rsynnott 4y ago

> It has a population of 45 billion, and a surface area of approx. 40% that of Earth. I think he retconned this up a bit in later stories, after people had pointed out the problem. But yeah, it's a weirdly common problem in science fiction; for whatever reason few authors bothered to check the density of existing cities before declaring a weirdly sparse world-city.

throwaway4aday 4y ago

You could explain away the discrepancy by saying that the 45 billion number is the number of permanent residents. As the seat of a galactic empire it would likely host representatives and their staff and families from tens of thousands of worlds, would probably be a hub of interstellar trade with many merchants and the crew of their ships staying for weeks at a time, a major tourist and religious hub with billions of visitors and pilgrims, countless numbers of galactic citizens would also make the journey to petition the emperor for various things. The list could go on for a mile and could result in a much larger effective population at any one time.

chaostheory 4y ago

It’s hard to take making sense of population numbers with the use of fictional material.