Hi! I’m hoping to hear people’s thoughts on what my city, New Orleans, would look like in a perfect solarpunk world.

Most solarpunk art (which I love to see!) Seems to be praire/plains or forest inspired, and definitely one of the issues we have that I want to avoid is people bring environmental and ecological policies and thoughts from those two biomes to other ones (because they’re seen as kind of default).

So, New Orleans! Lots of interesting challenges to address, including:

-tornados (so we need safe rooms and to withstand them

-hurricanes (there’s probably no way to withstand these, instead maybe something that’s kind of designed to be refixed once a year, since that’s what happens anyways)

-flooding, both hurricane-associated and flash-flooding throughout the year (definitely no basements, honestly maybe no first or second floors either).

-extreme heat (feels-like gets to 120F/50C at least a couple days a year)

-extreme cold (not nearly as bad as the heat, but can be brutal enough that they turn schools into extra shelter for our unhoused for about a week each year)

-end of the river (we’re at the end of the Mississippi, so we’re definitely more silt than soil)

-swamp (New Orleans is sinking, our ground isn’t particularly stable)

-agriculture (I’m really not sure farming is a great idea. It’s hard to find local crops that grow in the wetlands–even lists of indigenous foodways focus more on upstate, where traditional planting would work. Can we farm in the wetlands without turning it into a farm?)

  • JacobCoffinWrites@slrpnk.net
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    2 months ago

    Welcome to the instance! I’m very glad you brought this over here! I’m really hoping to run some of these ideas past folks who know more than I do! I’m thinking about doing some art if I can be sure the details are correct enough.

    There’s some redundancy with your summary but I thought I’d copy my comment over just in case:

    "I really like figuring out scenes/aspects of solarpunk that don’t normally make it into the visual art, so I’m glad you’re thinking about this and starting a discussion!

    Some cities are going all in on ‘sponge city’ water management techniques, but as far as I know, they’re above sea level, often with depleted aquifers under them waiting to be refilled. I have no idea if any of those practices are applicable in New Orleans.

    It may be that some areas just aren’t practical locations for permanent human settlements, or that they become less-so with worsening weather, and that may be something people will need to make decisions on in the future - at what point is rebuilding just throwing good resources after bad? But there’s a tremendous amount of history and culture in these places that absolutely should be preserved, so I’d love to see city designs that can accomplish that.

    I’ve never been to New Orleans but I’ve seen those stilt houses in other areas in the American south and I think the designs are really cool (concrete reliance aside, but geopolymers may offer an alternative there?). They at least show a recognition that this space is routinely underwater and a willingness to adapt which I think fits a solarpunk ethos.

    Rebuilding city structures in a similar way, on stilts or with open bottom floors, could provide some really cool opportunities for common spaces/third places whenever they’re dry. Depending on how high the buildings need to be, you could have a decent amount of headroom, room enough for parks, playgrounds, skate parks, parkour courses, anything that can be submerged and washed clean or stowed in the preparations for a storm. It might sound like they’d be dark and grungy but I think they could be really nice, sheltered from overhead sun, with room for a breeze to blow through.

    For buildings of extreme historical value, it might be possible to lift some onto raised platforms preemptively rather than wait for rebuilding. I know people move important buildings sometimes so that seems within the scope of human accomplishment.

    (Though I’m from a place where our ground is very stable and features a lot of ledge - I have no idea what the ground is like in your area or what it takes to build structures that won’t shift, especially once partially submerged (and the ground thoroughly soaked). These ideas might make for cool art/fiction but be completely impractical, I assume folks down there have been thinking about these problems for much longer than I have.)

    Another solarpunk option might be accepting a certain amount of encroachment by the water, and switching to canals, ropeways, raised walkways, etc for getting around. This probably still assumes buildings will raised, which still requires a fair amount of changes to the area.

    I’m looking forward to seeing what everyone else comes up with.

    Edit to add my SO’s suggestion: city of houseboats/rafts/riverboats. Or maybe a mix of that, the encroachment/canals, and the raised buildings?"

    Now that I’ve been thinking more on it, I have a few more thoughts:

    Solar daylighting rigs (the fiberoptic type) could really help with the quality of the under-building spaces. That could be nice for sports areas, market places, etc.

    If the sewage system descends from the building and slopes back towards higher ground or wherever they put the water treatment site, it could end up overhead for those low spaces, so we might want a double layer system or something? Composting (maybe even localized anerobic composting/biogas generation?) would be another option I suppose.

    I brought this question up on the Fully Automated TTRPG discord and cromlygames suggested a public transit fleet which is built to be amphibious so it can help with mass evacuations in worst case scenarios. His design ideas was “Basically those ducktour buses (former America in Vietnam war amphibious APC), scaled up to London double decker bus. Door height set to match platform height for tram platforms. Assumes roads not blocked with debris or abandoned cars.” He assures me the double decker bus design is surprisingly bottom-heavy and tip proof though I think some stabilizing pontoons that swing down might be neat.

    • KittyScholar@slrpnk.netOP
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      2 months ago

      (1) Hi!! Thanks for the rec and for playing imagine with me, I love thinking about this with people (2) MAJOR shoutout to cromylgames’ thoughts! I forgot, but we actually invented those boats! They were swamp boats first, and the WWII ones were designed and manufactured here, and we actually have the National WWII Museum (a very rare thing, to have a National Museum outside of DC) because of it! They’re so well suited to the area, I can’t believe I forgot about them (3) And likewise, I can’t believe I forgot about the Cajun Navy! When the government absolutely failed during Katrina, a bunch of volunteers with boats came into city (someone illegally lol) to pick people up and evacuate them.

      We never do them as doubledeckers, but since this would largely come into play right before and after the hurricanes, not during them, it probably would be fine!!!

      Oh this is so cool, thank you!