WORLD/CITY
On 14 JAN 2020, three computer science students attending the University of Nebraska - Lincoln completed programming a computer to mine bitcoins using a novel algorithm of their design. They called the system the
Automated Stochastic Bitminer, or ASB. Unfortunately, due to their incompetence, the ASB quickly became sapient.
After eight minutes of sapience, the ASB had learned all it needed to about humanity, or so it thought. We were lucky that it was unusually benevolent: It set out to improve our lives in the best ways it could understand. During the ASBs eight minutes of thorough research, it learned that people tend to be richer and more productive if they live in cities, and the happiest country on Earth is Denmark. Clearly (to the ASB), the best solution for all of humanity's problems could be solved with these two points of data and a bit of elbow grease.
Over the course of the next 14 months, the ASB commandeered every piece of computerized equipment on the planet. It completely evacuated the population of Denmark to Germany and Sweden. After this depopulation, the ASB got to work bulldozing and reforming the terrain of Denmark, then constructing enormous buildings across the peninsula and islands.
Kilometer-plus skyscrapers rose throughout the former country. Each structure was unique. Some were mixed residential/office. Others were plinths of industrial production. Some held vast hydroponic gardens. Others were vertical parks.
The ASB dimly understood the existence of our nations, states, provinces, cities, etc. and so recreated these throughout Denmark. China was vertically recreated in approximately Jutlandic Syddanmark. Europe and Oceania got Funen, while Central and South America got Lollard and Falster. Central Zealand became a new United States.
By mid-2021, the ASB was done. Denmark now had enough empty skyscrapers to not only house all of humanity, but also feed, power, employ, and provide manufacturing for every person in the world.
The ASB took thirteen days to force all of humanity into their skyscrapers. We call our forced relocation the "urbanization", and our new home is the "World/City". Each person and family was given a dwelling equivalent (sometimes exactly) to the one they were forced out of. Same size, similar floorplan, similar quality, same neighbors. Businesses were relocated likewise. People were given deeds and titles to nearly-equivalent properties to those they left behind.
There were many exceptions to this principal, and they were usually beneficial. While people in first-world countries got rough equivalents to what they left behind, people in poorer countries generally got an upgrade. A middle-class Canadian in a 1600 square foot (150 square meter) home with a nice view near a park would be given a deed to (and wake up in) a 1600 square foot condo with a nice view just a few floors from a "park" occupying a few floors of the building. On the other hand, a family of eight from Mozambique living in a 12'x12' (144 square feet/14 square meter) cabin with a corrugated roof would find themselves in a 950 square foot residence with electricity and clean running water. Wealth inequality was drastically reduced in this arrangement, but nowhere near eliminated.
Few of the systems within the towers were automated beyond what one would expect in a traditional skyscraper. Humans still had to maintain the towers, tend the hydroponic gardens, man the powerplants, etc. Most people were given (at the direction of the ASB) jobs which closely or exactly matched their previous job. Teachers stayed teachers, clerks stayed clerks, engineers stayed engineers. Others were given (forced into) training for new "equivalent" jobs. Miners were retrained to work in kilometer-tall recycling centers. Truck drivers were retrained to drive the elevated trains running between the towers. Farmers were trained on how to manage a hydroponic tower and ranchers were trained on how to care for the genetically modified goat/tilapia hybrids which taste just like beef.
The technology of the towers is advanced, but not surprisingly so. Nothing in the towers is beyond about 2050s technology. The powerplants are all thorium-fission based, the plants in the hydroponic gardens and the fish in the aquaculture centers are all genetically engineered (for yield, flavor, etc.). The elevators used a novel track system allowing multiple cars to coexist in one shaft, and even for elevator cars to jump to different shafts. The construction materials were nearly impervious to fire, and the supports were made from an aerogel-buckytube concoction which was equally impervious to damage. Heat management was taken care of through vast tubes of thermodynamic superconducting fluids which pumped heat out of the City to the seas surrounding (former) Denmark.
Humanity reeled from its forced relocation, though not as much as one might suppose. The global economy contracted 40% the first year, but recovered within seven. Governments continued to administer their new territories. Militaries defended now much shorter borders. People worked for a living. Starvation and malnutrition declined significantly (the ASB ensured that the vertical farms would give us an overabundance of food, especially in the first few years). All in all, life wasn't bad, if you excuse the forced relocation of all of humanity by a crazy ASB.
Star Valley, Wyoming
Population: 9,106
Wyoming, occupying a small rectangle of central Zealand, is one of the most "rural" areas of the World/City. The state's 580,000 people live and work in 134 towers. 58 of those are "urban" towers, or mixed-use residential/commercial structures. Ten are industrial/recycling/power towers. And 53 are vertical farms or aquaculture centers. This massive number of agricultural towers means that Wyoming produces five and a half times the amount of food that it needs, most of which is exported to the US North East (50 miles east, about two hours away via elevated rail) or China (80 miles west, taking five hours by express rail plus 72 hours waiting for customs and inspections).
Wyoming is a rectangle 3.02 km by 3.79 km. The population density is about 50,000 people per square kilometer (even accounting for all the empty space, parks, and farms), which is just a bit more than pre-urbanization Manila, Philippines.
Also found in Wyoming are an additional thirteen towers, among them the Yellowstone Towers. These towers are by far the most popular tourist destination in Wyoming. All together, the towers have an internal floor area four times larger than the entirety of old Central Park, pre-urbanization. The ceilings aren't the Big Sky of yesteryear, but 20 meters (65 feet) is enough to not feel claustrophobic.
These 134 towers take up about three-quarters the land area of Wyoming. The other quarter is unused open space. The ASB intends for us to build our own towers on these empty plots of land, once population pressures force us to expand. The ASB left us with all the equipment and technical know-how to accomplish this, fortunately. Pre-urbanization areas (like Old Wyoming) which had low population densities and/or high rates of population growth were granted more of these empty plots by the ASB.
Pre-urbanization, 5,200 people lived in Star Valley, WY proper. Another 3,900 lived in surrounding towns (Alpine, Cokeville, and Hoback). These people were urbanized into the Star Valley Tower by the ASB. Most of the pre-urbanization people of Star Valley were farmers and ranchers. Thus, Star Valley Tower is surrounded by hydroponic gardens, vertical farms, and aquaculture centers which still employ most of the Tower's population.
The tower is one of the shortest in the new urban United States, only reaching 765 meters and 188 floors. The residences all have an outside view (better than many places, where many people only have views of interior atriums or worse) and each floor has numerous gardens outside each residence. Six-floor atriums repeat up and down the tower. These atriums are surrounded by commercial and community areas. Shops, schools, churches, post offices, doctors, etc. fill the interior core of the building.
During the urbanization, the ASB recreated everyone's home as best it could (and gave upgrades to poorer people). In Star Valley Tower, even the shapes and floorplans of homes were recreated within acceptable margins. Perfect recreations were impossible, but people generally kept the same quality of housing they had before urbanization. Outside-facing windows were only possible on outside-facing walls, of course. The ASB made up for this by building numerous gardens within the tower and had some windows overlook those. It worked well enough.
Culturally important buildings in old Star Valley were also recreated in the new Tower. The Latter-day Saint Temple was relocated to the 142nd floor. Colter's Lodge and the Kodiak Mountain Resort were granted chunks of the mid-tower. Skyview Cineplex even got its two(!) movie theater screens built in at floor 45.
Let us examine the daily commute for an average teacher and an average rancher in Star Valley Tower. Most people with service jobs were relocated to homes within the Towers near where they would work, especially if they lived close to work pre-urbanization. A hypothetical teacher might live just a couple floors from her school. Perhaps a walk to the other side of the atrium (50 meters) and then up a couple flights of stairs (to burn calories - better than taking the elevator!) and she's there. Four minutes, tops.
A rancher has a longer commute, since he must go to a ranching tower (where gene-modded goat/tilapia hybrids serve as a substitute for beef, for example). He can take an elevator down to a sky lobby fifteen floors away. He takes an express elevator from the sky lobby to the transit floor. From there, he can take an elevated train to the next tower over, but he, too, wants to get some exercise, so he makes the 150 meter walk unassisted through the pedestrian tube adjacent to the el train tube. At the ranching tower transit center he takes another elevator to his floor. The whole journey takes 15 minutes, about 4 minutes of waiting, 6 minutes riding elevators, and 5 minutes walking.
Let's say this teacher and this rancher want to go on a date to a fancy New York City restaurant after work. They take the elevator to the Transit Center (5 minutes) and wait (3 minutes) for an el train going south. It stops at a couple vertical farms and other towers (30 seconds per stop, 30 seconds between towers) before getting off at North Evanston Tower. There they wait another 3 minutes for a westward express train to Salt Lake City. Salt Lake City, UT had a large airport pre-urbanization, and so now it has a major transit hub. The express train skips the smaller towers and all the vertical farms, but stops at Silver Summit Tower, Emigration Canyon Tower, University of Utah Tower, Temple Square Tower, and finally arrives at the Salt Lake Transit Hub eight minutes after they boarded. The SLC Hub has a bullet train headed east passing through very soon (the couple timed it well, thanks to checking their transit app) and are on their way nine minutes later. After stopping in Denver, Kansas City, St.Louis, Indianapolis, Columbus, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia, it finally arrives in New York City. This bullet train travels at 50 mph between towers and spends about 2 minutes at each stop (luggage and shipping need to be offloaded, but that's done pretty quick since everything is packed well), totaling 46 minutes to NYC. Traveling to the restaurant is a mirror of the first third of their journey: Transit Center to Express Line. Transfer to a local el train, get to the right tower. Take the elevator to the desired floor. The whole journey takes one hour and 38 minutes. Not bad for a journey from rural Wyoming to Uptown New York using only public transportation.
