4 ms·

I subscribe to reddit's /r/retrofuturism and I've formulated a hypothesis about this. The future we used to want was full of what I like to call "garden cities"

• DanBC 12y ago
  Have you read William Gibson's "The Gernsback Continuum"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gernsback_Continuum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gernsback_Continuum A dodgy Russian site has the text http://lib.ru/GIBSON/r_contin.txt http://lib.ru/GIBSON/r_contin.txt
  • bane 12y ago
    No, but this sounds kind of amazing. I'm adding it to my queue right now! I'm going to give the TV adaptation a quick watch also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BmRiDxrnPQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BmRiDxrnPQ
  • ghaff 12y ago
    Brilliant story. A number of years back, I used the theme as an intro to a consulting report I wrote. It's probably the best counterpoint to the Zeppelin-filled skies of utopian science fiction of a certain period.
  • ak217 12y ago
    lib.ru is not exactly dodgy. It's the oldest Russian online library, founded in 1994.
    • PhantomGremlin 12y ago
      Perhaps he meant dodgy in the sense of "dishonest". I.e. ignoring the spirit if not the letter of the Berne Convention? I'm by no means a legal scholar, but this story was apparently published in 1981. Russia agreed[1] to Berne protection for 1973 and later work. So why is the full text of the story available at that link? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_Russian_Federation#Amendments_of_the_1993_Copyright_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_Russian_F...
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
• andrewliebchen 12y ago
  The "garden city" movement was a thing, but not quite what you're describing. "Towers in a park" was an organizational scheme for cities proposed by Modern architects, such as Le Cobusier in his Ville Radieuse proposal, and is maybe more like what you're thinking. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_city_movement http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_city_movement http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ville_Radieuse http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ville_Radieuse
  • bane 12y ago
    Brasilia is definitely the kind of alternate future garden city I'm thinking of. I mean, can you imagine walking between buildings at opposite ends of that area? In that heat? Why not build taller buildings? Crammed together on a grid, provide underground walking areas? There's certainly no shortage of cars there https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bras%C3%ADlia+-+Federal+District,+Brazil/@-15.800762,-47.881848,3a,75y,40.46h,76.03t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sFRECJOVJcIaPFc3_QeZibg!2e0!4m2!3m1!1s0x935a3d18df9ae275:0x738470e469754a24!6m1!1e1 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bras%C3%ADlia+-+Federal+Di...
    • pharke 12y ago
      Perhaps there is a different term for the type of city you are thinking of, generally cities such as Letchworth[1] are moreso what is known as a garden city. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letchworth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letchworth
      • bane 12y ago
        Absolutely. The greenbelt defined cities like Letchworth are definitely a different phenomenon. I'm thinking more of cities as gardens.
        • andrewliebchen 12y ago
          Letchworth is a Garden City. Brasilia is a "towers in a park" type Modernist city. You're interested in "towers in a park." Historically, cities like Brasilia were designed around the logic of the car. For example, most roadway intersections feature over and underpasses, cars are completely segregated from pedestrians. By most accounts, it doesn't work so well.
• mirimir 12y ago
  There's also Paulo Soleri. In his plan for the Newark Airport, he proposed to house the entire population of New Jersey. The runways would have been on the roof.