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Elevators haven't changed much in 150 years; the controls got more sophisticated, but they basically remained a box pulled up by a cable, with one cab per shaft. This becomes a real problem as buildings get taller; the multiple shafts end up taking up a lot of valuable real estate, with only one little box in each. The cables get so heavy that you end up spending more energy moving cables than cab. As the buildings sway, the cables start swaying too. The elevators end up being a real limiting factor on the height of our buildings and the density of our cities, and a big factor in the high cost of high buildings.
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Last year, ThyssenKrupp announced a solution to this problem: the MULTI lift system which gets rid of elevator cables, and instead runs each elevator cab as an independent vehicle on a vertical track, powered by linear induction motors. Because there were no cables, it meant that they could put more than one car in every shaft. In fact, they could put a continuous stream of them in.
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And move it does, in the most remarkable ways, unlike any elevator ever built. The cabs rise up on the tracks, powered by the linear induction motors; when they reach the end, top, bottom or any point where they want to move sideways, a section of track rotates and the cab goes sideways.
Two words: motion sickness.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Gravis on Sunday November 08 2015, @11:43PM
elevators end up being a real limiting factor on the height of our buildings and the density of our cities
seriously, why would you want to increase the density of our cities? if Texas was as densely populated as NYC, it would house 28 billion people. so tell me again, why do we need even denser cities?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday November 09 2015, @12:17AM
I modded you insightful because my city and neighborhood is under attack from the gentrification menace.
The gentrification menace has already won the battle in other cities in my state and other states, and their mandate is to implement the population density of Tokyo and the quality of life of Delhi slums.
The Gentrification menace must be stopped at all costs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 09 2015, @12:42AM
I heard a local mayor say he was going to develop every undeveloped area in the city, and redevelop every low-tax development.
(Score: 4, Funny) by takyon on Monday November 09 2015, @12:19AM
Because when you build enough arcologies in SimCity 2000 you get to launch off the planet.
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(Score: 4, Interesting) by tftp on Monday November 09 2015, @01:11AM
seriously, why would you want to increase the density of our cities?
Then you can take public transit to work - something that is mostly impractical in a widespread, thinly populated cloud of suburbs.
Would one want to live in an arcology? Well, it's a matter of personal choice. Some people insist on a personal garden. Other are perfectly fine with a Japanese hotel of the type "hole in a wall." I tried both. I can live in either. However the Japanese approach is much cheaper. If you live for work, that's the one you choose.
(Score: 5, Informative) by VLM on Monday November 09 2015, @01:41AM
why would you want to increase the density of our cities?
I can afford a lifestyle where there's a hundreds of acre nature preserve about 10 minutes away from my house, there's an organic food store 5 minutes away, less than 5 minutes off a uni campus, all kinds of nice stuff; the point is a super density arcology would theoretically allow your average city slicker to afford the kind of lifestyle that only "decades of experience multi income tech professionals" can currently afford. So you need 1K people in one square mile all earning over 100K to host an organic supermarket... OK well that's kinda challenging everywhere except the richest burbs and the part of the city that has condos over $1M, therefore everyone else doesn't get organic supermarkets. On the other hand, if you have one building holding 1M people, "natural income distribution" alone guarantees all 1M will get access to an organic supermarket.
Or for organic supermarket, read whatever pet project you like, makerspace or nudist club or pro sports team or WTF. Most "cool" things have a hard floor of minimum income density, so a nice hack is just to increase density.
I also went to a uni that was kinda "ranch style" I swear it was well over one square mile of two to five story buildings... I would have preferred a nice escalator and 20 floors and put the whole thing in one skyscraper than those long 20 minute walks across campus in the rain or snow in the dark.
Or possibly it would turn into a whopping huge slum. In which case all the criminals would be in one place, far away from me, probably surrounded by cops... sounds like a prison, or the inner city, LOL. I guess if the inner city is currently uninhabitable by civilized beings (although we force people to live there anyway, so its not like we're civilized ourselves) and locally is about four square miles depending on your personal definitions and tolerance of gunfire, if you put the whole thing into one giant arcology building and posted guards, that means 3.9 square miles of prime real estate could be redeveloped. Maybe I'd move into the city. Probably not, being a nature / hiker guy, but at least I'd consider it.
(Score: 1) by DutchUncle on Monday November 09 2015, @03:42PM
Nobody is suggesting making all of Texas as dense as NYC. The suggestion is that spreading a city's worth of population one story thin (like buttter scraped over too much bread) takes a lot of space, and a lot of roads, and causes a lot of transportation overhead for the most basic things like distributing food and getting to work. And when things are too spread out, "mass transit" becomes a misnomer, even if we expect self-driving taxicabs soon. Part of the problem is that rural and suburban people equate density with poverty and squalor. We should be looking for economical AND sociological/psychological balance between *moderate* density (like older parts of NYC), and having enough volume per person/family to be comfortable, at reasonable prices. We want population dense enough to achieve critical mass for activities and interactions, and efficiency, while giving people enough space so they don't feel compressed. The best way to do that is to build vertically.
(Score: 1) by Osamabobama on Monday November 09 2015, @07:34PM
One interesting example of how population density makes some amenities possible is a cruise ship. I understand that they have some pretty good stuff going on for their guests, attractions that would be unaffordable without a lot of people nearby.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 09 2015, @03:47PM
seriously, why would you want to increase the density of our cities? if Texas was as densely populated as NYC, it would house 28 billion people. so tell me again, why do we need even denser cities?
Because a lot of people want to be in those small areas. It also lowers population densities of the areas outside of these high density cores.
(Score: 1) by Gault.Drakkor on Monday November 09 2015, @07:36PM
Why density is useful:
- Long tail allows for more shops/services/groups/ etc (as others have mentioned).
- Service efficiencies - mass transit,/reduced need for transport.
- Greener/ environmental protection. if vast majority lived in super high density cities (along with dense food, power) humans can shrink there footprint on the world.you can have entire regions/states/provinces that have only transitory humans/vacationers etc. We could have a dozen or so ultra-supper cities and very large nature preserves.
- Increased productivity due to closeness of business inputs and outputs.