LEAVE THE SQUALID STREETS BEHIND AND MOVE INTO A BLADE-TOWER TODAY! (2)
The Bigger You Are The Richer You Are
How the tower would look to those of us stuck at ground level
When I started writing this series, I thought a lot about what the future city would be like. So much of sci-fi/cyberpunk is defined by Blade Runner, Neuromancer, and similar works that it felt dated working with that aesthetic, no matter how much I love the source material.
Instead I considered what impacts mass unemployment—in a country with no social support system—would have upon city master planning. If New York was in as bad a shape as I envisioned, wouldn’t people just leave?
No, I don't think that would ever be the case for the major cities of the world, whether Shanghai, Sydney, London, or New York. There will always be a group of elites who will want to live there, if only for a few days or months per year. What would happen, however, is an increasing separation of the one percent from urban areas of poverty and crime. What better way to distance yourself from such social inconvenience than to rise above it?
In New York City we are already seeing the construction of amazingly tall and thin buildings for the few who occasionally live there:
111 West 57th is 1420' tall (Blade Tower One is nearly five times as high.)
This tower offers great views for the 1% hidden inside, while blocking sunlight by casting long shadows into Central Park during the afternoons. Like 432 Park Ave (below) these are great pieces of architecture, while being culturally and politically suspect additions to the city.
If this had a fusion reactor at its base its just how I imagined looking up at a Blade Tower (only this is way smaller)
1400' high, with amazing views for the little piggies who live there. 🐷
2050s Blade Towers are an extension of this trend. Cortex’s spinneret technology combined with the development of flying cars allows the one percent to build themselves a new city above the wreckage of the old.
The first Blade Tower design used a mile-high braced column that acts as the backbone of the building. Then, from the top down, living spaces and floors fill in the structure until they reach the half-mile level.
Only the structure remains below that, until at the bottom is an armored and defended pedestal containing the building’s power plant (typically a fusion reactor). The podium defenses are autonomous riot-control systems akin to those used in modern embassy designs.
This view of Tower One (with the Empire state way down below) shows the living floors built around the central braced column.
The lower block is an armored and reinforced pedestal containing a variety of lethal and non-lethal defense systems. If anyone gets within 100' of its perimeter, their threat level is assessed and 'appropriate' levels of response is used to drive them away.
Above that is the tower's fusion reactor. This sits within an armored containment vessel (typically red in color). The central column structure is designed to withstand any unforeseen "reaction events."
Those little dots at the bottom are the people left behind at ground level.
The design for Tower One was greeted with acclaim from the (paid off) architectural and art critics and sold out before it opened. However, within only a few years it was considered austere and out-of-date. I shall write about what came next (for the tower and the whole city) on the next page…
If you could, would you want to live in a tower that high? Or do you think it's crazy to live in a city, just to look down on it from above? I’d love to know what you think, so send me an email and let's chat! 😀
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