Atlas City Project

Copied from Zeitgeist forum

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Ok, so this hasn't really been touched upon yet. We should probably start by making a list of the neccessary utilities, which buildings will be needed, and approximately how many people it will take to run. This last one will be purely an estimate on my part because I don't know about these specifics.

Water/septic: I think collection and recycling can be built into one building quite easily. With the small population we will be dealing with this shouldn't require too much, or too many people to handle. Most of it can, I'm sure, be easily automated and only take a person or two to monitor systems regularly and 2-6 people to occasionally clean out clogged sections of the filters. Chemicals needed for septic systems can be automated, but the occasional cleaning can be a problem (watch Dirty Jobs when he needs to clean one of these out!), but again with the small population won't be as much of a hassle.

Electric: with the dozens of ideas submitted thus far, this should be a very simple utility to deal with. We have ideas of wind farms, personal solar panels, solar roads, piezoelectric panels, and many others that basically just need to be plugged in and work themselves. Repairs will probably be fairly common, which will take a specialized team. The windmills and rodin coil idea would probably take a small power plant to deal with, but nothing too large. Geothermal plants are pretty simple to take care of from what I've read (if this is in our area of development). Even the creation of the solar panels used can be fully automated based on one of the videos posted. All in all (monitoring, building, repairs) I don't see this taking more then 3-4 dozen specialists, most of which only work when things fail. One thing not discussed is if we should have a backup battery system for when weather conditions just aren't fairing. This would be pretty self sustaining, but may be difficult to implement in the grand scale of a city.

Garbage/recycling: This will still require a bit of hands on use I think. It's an extensive process, but we will have to teach each citizen to do their part to make things easier. Every household and public area will require separate sections for trash, glass, plastic/cans, paper and maybe separate for compost as well. Collection of these on a bi-weekly basis (pretty standard in city situations) would take several teams. Depending on the housing structure (apartments vs. single housing style) we could be looking at anywhere from 30-60 people just for collection. This can be minimalized if days and times are staggered properly between sections of the city, but then longer shifts may be required (maybe different teams can switch off every week or two so it's not too monotonous, maybe between occupations or just between collections and plant workers). The plant workers can vary greatly. I've seen a lot of new tech coming out in recycling centers to lessen the load of plant workers, but the vast majority still have assembly lines of people picking out things that shouldn't be in that section before the materials become recycled. This still needs lots of research. Clothes and fabrics can be used as recycled materials and insulation, but this is also in another threat about what buildings would be useful in the city (see Clothes Exchange).

As far as leisure utilities (TV, internet, cell phones, etc.) we will have to, for the time being, rely on outside sources. Unless we have some ability to create our own stand-alone internet service and run everything off of that, we are limited to the rest of society.

Well, these are all I can think of at the moment. Any others I'm missing?

Garbage/recycling:Every household and public area will require separate sections for trash, glass, plastic/cans, paper.


all these really do sound like monetary issues. forward thinking should put an end to these. if everything needs to be automated. its a job no one wants, and the energy seems to be a waste compared to reuse.

I would have to ask how you figure recycling as a monetary issue? This is an environmental issue that we will handle in a proper way, which is unique to our nation.

we have to ask ourselves what is trash? wrappers,antitheft packaging,plastics that the supermarket puts our meat in, hell everything we eat is put in some kind of conatiner we end up throwing away! We use to store all our food in mason jars, and reuse them. Eggs straight from the hen etc etc etc. Mr Fresco suggest we think different. In the new city im sure foward thinking would elimanate all this excess of waste. Paper!! Why would we ever have paper as waste? Household trash should not even be thought of having at all! I was not talking about the whole idea of recycling. If recycling includes reusing then ofcourse my statement is pointless.

Once again, transitional city. Let me say this again TRANSITIONAL. It has been explained and I'm unsure as to why this is still not sinking in, but I'll try to explain it further. This IS NOT VENUS PROJECT. That is the future goal, but far from realistic at this time. In Atlas we will try to eliminate as much waste from the beginning as possible. We will still be receiving shipments from outside sources or visitors. Those imports will follow whatever commercial law/policy they currently do. We cannot force others to be more responsible with their packaging.

We will encourage the lessening of use of products that are shipped this way and try to have more inner city production, but waste can not be gotten rid of by snapping ones fingers. It will take time, step by step. You must picture it this way. Imagine the city was completed. You just got your notice that your home is ready for you to move in (also, imagine this for the others that will be moving in). You will take all that is precious to you, mostly everything you own. Withing those items you take will be canned food, mouthwash bottles, and countless other items that will require proper disposal when they are empty.

I could go on, but this should satisfactorily explain the necessity for recycling centers. Trash is something we must deal with for now. Let's do it the right way.

Well during the transition, you better bring your cow,chickens,seeds,plants,mason jars,pepsi on tap, and whatever else you need that does not require stupid labor requirements along with waste of the resources. You know come to think of it, why call it the city of the future? Lets just call it the city of the past. Maybe we need some autitc people to help out with this.(Tesla,Einstein,Gogu Constantinescu,Temple Grandin shes still alive) We can do it the right way, or your way. Whatever?

I've been thinking a lot about waste lately. I want to have as close to 0 footprint as possible, making recycling everything important in my concepts of the city. I'm beginning to think, at least for the first year or two, there will be so much to create and stabilize that recycling may be difficult.

I propose that, during this difficult time,we simply collect and store recyclable material. Composting will be easy for us to do no matter where we are, but to create the plants for recycling glass, plastic, etc may take more time as other things are more important. However, there are individuals right now that will come to your house and pay to pick them up (which they then get paid more to take to a plant). If we can find an entire company that can haul our cities materials away it would be fine, and will also procure funds for land taxes.

All organic waste should go to a methane digester to produce electricity and possibly methanol for vehicle fuel or industrial use.

i was thinking the same thing too, good call steve

That was the other possible use, but composting would be necessary first if in the desert.

it will compost in the methane digester into a more usable form. the inorganic material can be either turned into new building material or given over to the many artists this place will of course draw to it. remelting plastics into blocks for sculptures and such.