Uproot, Lift Up and Replant a City
It finally happened. The inhabitants of Metropolis, the capital of Our Nation, have finally had enough of the swampy lands, suffocating summers, freezing winters, spring floods, risk of surprise invasion by sea and whatever other nastiness the local geography had in store for them.
They have decided to move Metropolis. Since Our Nation is a glorious empire with vast, vast resources at our disposal, we will literally uproot the entire city and move it some place we like better (about 161 km away -- 100 miles away).
How do we go about moving a city of 5 Million?
How much time, how much energy would it take? Can it be done in bulk, whole blocks at a time? Can you literally float it, in the air or on a river?
A few details:
- I would prefer near-future technology, but I won't get upset if your solution needs to specify otherwise, i.e. literally float-up into the air the whole darn city at once, as long as you can show your work (energy calculations etc).
- Metropolis has about 5.5 million people in the greater urban area, and is the seat of administration of Our Nation. Edit: The area is 176.9 km² or 68.3 mi².
- By law, no building in the city can be taller than the Giant Phallic Symbol of Power, a monument 169 m tall. Only a handful are taller than 60 meters.
- The move should be as quick as possible and cause as little disruption as possible to government and the lives of the inhabitants.
- As a real-life historical near-precedent, Chicago has literally been lifted off the ground, with 19th century tech at that.
- The reason we can't go the normal route (just build a new city) is because we're vainglorious and, frankly we have the technology and we want to show off.
- I softly encourage hard science answers, but if you feel you have a brilliant idea but lack the time or the maths to flesh it out, please share it anyway.
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/12210. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
1 answer
Float the city.
Dig under it and put in structural bracing to support the buildings and then tons of pontoons. Then let the ocean in to let the city float up, and then tow it up the coast to the new destination. You haven't described the city at all (building height, materials used etc) so this may take some super materials to make possible.
Edit This gets you out of the swamp and 100 miles away into a better climate with hopefully milder winters, without having to level mountains. Which takes care of the seasonal flooding and malaria. Since everything is pretty solidly braced at this point, if you want to get out of the water to get to higher ground you could put wheels on the city boats pull them out. And because they are raised up, it would be pretty easy to put the utilities in underneath.
Or you could find a sheltered harbor and have a floating capital.
They'd still be near the coast, so maybe surprise attacks from the sea will still be a problem, but these are people with the technology to move a city. Seems like a fleet of warships to patrol the ocean and remove any surprises before they become a problem should be a small task.
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