Taking home the History Channel's $10,000 prize for designing the "City of the Future" we have IwamotoScott's vision of San Francisco in 2108. Sometimes we talk about technologies a few years down the road, but we like to keep stuff grounded here at EcoGeek. Looking more than 30 years into the future has always turned out to be craptastically inaccurate.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that this kind of vision is useless. While some elements (giant carbon nanotube algae towers and underground hovercar highways) are fairly insane, thinking of the survival of our cities in the face of another century's continued growth is pretty important.

I say hovercars are crazy because I don't really think they'll ever provide an advantage over cars (especially not underground.) And if we're going to have giant algae plants, I assume we'll build them outside of the city where land is exponentially cheaper...so we don't have to build giant carbon nanotube towers to house them. Call me crazy.

Nonetheless, the elements of the plan that make sense make great sense. Pulling energy from the sun and storing it in algae on a large scale? Excellent. Powering the city of San Francisco with local underground geothermal power? Fantastic. Taking the load off the rivers and ocean with moisture collectors a la Tatooine? Absolutely fabulous.

Indeed, I think it deserves the $10,000 grand prize, even if I don't think humanity is ever going to graduate to the hovercar...(O Future! Please prove me wrong!)

Tons of pictures after the jump.

Via Inhabitat

Comments (9)

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written by Terra , March 05, 2008

This is really awesome and all, but why does it deserve a 10-grand prize? It seems like a waste of money for some nifty speculative images that aren't really helping anybody. Most of these innovations [espec. the hovercars] are not even practical or plausible for a sustainable future. Funnel that money into research that will help us now, so that we're still around to see stuff like this in the future.

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written by Dan Anderson , March 05, 2008

Actually the underground hovercars are probably a lot more possible than above ground. You'd have a contained system where you could you magnetic highways to create the lift, similar to the Maglev train in Japan. You could then use electricity to change the magnetic field and turn, or use some kind of air propulsion like a air boat. I'm not saying it's practical, but I think the below ground version is probably easier to develop than above ground.

Hover cars?
written by Danny Burleson , March 05, 2008

Actually, hover cars would mean no more popped tires filling up landfills and backyards (not to mention their initial manufacturing costs; financially and environmentally.) So it would theoretically be environmentally friendly. But would it be practical underground? Probably not. Even with maintenance costs, rails would probably remain a practical option.

It would definitely be easier to accomplish underground physically speaking, but aboveground would serve a better purpose. Especially if that meant ALL-terrain driving. I live in the Puget Sound, and if I could drive over water, I would quite literally shave 20 minutes off my 30 minute trip to work.

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written by EL , March 05, 2008

Taking the load off the rivers and ocean with moisture collectors a la Tatooine? Absolutely fabulous.

Absolutely. fabulous.

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written by Nolan , March 05, 2008

Terra asked why it deserves 10,000 dollar prize. I think that it is good even if most of the ideas are not practical. At least it is getting people thinking. It is good to get people to try to come up with new and even crazy ideas because we do need to get people to think out of the box because look where inside the box thinking as got us.

those?
written by EL , March 06, 2008

>> Exactly. But also, just by taking a once-over of those, it is very apparent that this was not that high budget of a project with years of resources being dumped into it. You don't have to pay large for graphics like those.

San Francisco in 2108
written by Jon , March 08, 2008

San Francisco in 2008 already is awesome.... init.
I'll have $10k if anyone has got it spare, and I can draw you some stupid pictures and come up with a whole load of silly informed ideas too if you like. Maybe this $10k winner will spend the money going to college to become educated in renewable energy and urban planning?

AMAZING
written by Tom , March 09, 2008

This is such a great project!
I wish my countrymen were as innovative as you are guys

I can't wait.
written by Clayton , March 14, 2008

Count me in. I want either an algae tube or a hovercraft, whichever comes first...

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