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The ideal city: It all comes down to perspective
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If I was charged with designing the ideal city, how would my city look? (Please keep in mind that all that follows is total supposition).
Much of it will be subterranean so I don't have to deal with the elements. But then again, much of it will also be at or above ground, so not to worry.
At the subsurface level there will be people-mover or personal rapid transit systems, highway and secondary road, lightrail and/or trolley and, of course, subway infrastructure, expressly for the purpose of transiting the general public. Any and all vehicles operating below surface will be, by necessity, zero-emissions.
Below surface level will be parking provisions - garages and what-not - and pedestrian promenades at just below surface level that will benefit from natural lighting via glass canopies for instance, whose tops will be flush with or slightly bowed up from surface level. In addition, all utilities - electricity, gas, sewage, water, waste delivery conduit - will be handled subsurface. These will be color-coded for incoming and outgoing. The sewage and liquid and solid waste will be directed via pipe- or tube-line to outlying disposal and treatment sites. High-speed rail access will be available below ground level as well. Its purpose? High-speed trains will be utilized to efficiently move masses intercity. There will also be residential and commercial below surface level, once again, with myriad pedestrian spaces or malls/promenades. Buildings will be steam heated, once more, through below surface delivery infrastructure.
If all this is beneath the surface, what's at or above ground level?
At-grade and above, will be dense, urban low-, medium-, and high-rise development - transit- and pedestrian-oriented in the purest sense. There will also be surface streets, but their use is reserved for bicycles (human-powered vehicles), emergency and commercial or delivery vehicles, in other words, trucks, and the occasional private passenger vehicle. Surface streets will be narrow to discourage on-street parking, allowing, for instance, street sweeper service greater accessibility without interference from street-parked cars and to conserve space. Airports and common-carrier rail infrastructure will both continue to be surface-oriented, but access to and from the airports, for example, will be had either at-grade or below. Because mixed-use at, above and below ground-level development will be standard fare, there will be plenty of pedestrian malls and as well, these environs will be very pedestrian-friendly. For those wishing to travel between one part of the city and another, this will be provided relatively fluidly through any number of subsurface transit options. There will also be plenty of surface-based solar collection systems for electricity and steam generation.
The nice feature about this type of city design is that it would foster conservation and promote efficient use of infrastructure and lower environmental impact - that's the idea anyway. Less water will be needed to water lawns, for instance. Gasoline consumption would presumably be reduced because all below surface mobility options will be emissions-free, surface pollution levels will presumably drop due to far fewer internal-combustion-powered vehicles operating at surface level and, as a result, air quality will improve considerably. It will also presumably make getting around the city less cumbersome and less encumbered and less stressful, and productivity levels will likely rise as a result of there being more efficient access to most everything.
Oh, I almost forgot. For those who still want traditional housing with all the "conveniences" that come with that, this will still be available. And incidentally, farming will still be done the traditional way with maybe more organic-growing practices with techniques such as hydroponic crop-growing techniques more wide-spread obviously, both at the surface and below, with some of it conceivably above surface, too.
Where would my ideal city be located? Actually, "anywhere" and "everywhere" works fine for me.
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