I’ve been thinking about trying to depict some of the ideas from this conversation: https://slrpnk.net/post/12735795, using a sort of flat, diagram-like style similar to this old photobash:
Though a bit more complex. The obvious answer is ‘don’t build cities in swamps’ but we already have a bunch of them, and though I don’t live there I recognize that they have a lot of unique cultural and historical value and are peoples’ homes, so I’m interested in what a solarpunk-adapted version of these would look like.
At the same time, I know basically nothing about New Orleans or similar areas, have no background in civil engineering, and no qualifications to make this except for the capability to do so using an old version of GIMP. So I’d absolutely love to identify issues, places to make improvements, and things that are missing now rather than once I’ve spent days chopping up images and finessing them into something coherent.
So what’d I get wrong? What’s unworkable, out of scale, or dangerous? What style of buildings or cultural touchstones would you like to see? What kind of plants are missing?
Hi! Oooh tihs is so cool thanks for playing with this idea with me! Here are some random thoughts, both related to your drawing and not:
-swamps tend to be really shallow, which is why we have the boatcars
-here’s some native swamp plants people can eat: wood sorrel, thistle, red clover, mulberry
-maybe a two-tier public transit system? We have streetcars, it’d be a shame to give them up. maybe there’s parts of the city that are flooded, with houseboats/amphibious vehicles/big parades (the floats could actually float in the water, and instead of tractors they could be pulled by cute little tugboats. and I think the tugboats should have a little paddlewheel like our riverboats, just for fun), and then parts that are not, with buildings on land/streetcars/walking parades on roads.
-I definitely think emergency vehicles should be amphibious vehicles!
-important buildings like a city hospital should be tall and we NEED to have helipads on the roof, both for lifting patients in and for evacuation. So a full rooftop garden wouldn’t be a good idea, but I bet a groundcover plant could work for those roofs, maybe one that soaks up a lot of water? Smaller buildings probably want slanted roofs so water doesn’t pool. Not sure how to solarpunk slanted roofs–we do alright with solarpanels but they do take a beating.
-LOVE the gondola in the air! With our heat, definitely would need GOOD window coverings to block out sun and heat. In general, New Orleans should have smaller and fewer windows than in classic in solarpunk–some of our new office buildings are like all-window, you know that new style? And it sucks in the summer
-NO STAGNANT WATER this is mosquito territory and I hate them both personally and because they’re invasive. Gotta keep ALL WATER moving so they don’t breed
-this is random but based on your drawing, I’m really seeing the main city as being like above the ground/water (also a great way to keep people from getting hit by streetcars or falling into the water, easy to have rails on that if pedestrian walkways are more elevated than not.). Thinking about the Highline in New York–if people are walking, I don’t wanna put on train on it, but there’s such cool plants and seating areas on stuff on that. And I always felt so safe walking on the Highline because it was removed from the cars on the street. I wonder about how we’d drain it during rain–maybe the whole thing could be on a very slght slant that humans don’t notice but then all the water drips off into the canal below