If there is ever a completely planned city, it should be laid out in a square grid.
Each block formed by the intersection of the roads would be built according to a set pattern:
The benefits of this would be:
No envie between residence: Everyone would live in the same ugly block:
Efficient system of public transport: You could have trams on every road going one way, and trams on every cross road, So to get from any one point in the city to another, you would always have to only take 2 vehicles.
Efficient energy, water, communications distribution: Everything is in strait lines and predictable.
It would look obvious from space, so any visiting aliens would take notice.
The city could stay decentralized, because if any one area became a centre, the occupants of the buildings there could be uniformly dispersed throughout the city, because every building is the same.
Cost saving in design: No need to waste money on architects to design buildings: Only a few building designs repeated.
Mass production of construction materials.
Easy to isolate city in the event of a disease outbreak : Just build 4 walls.
overview and detail of planned city:
September 3, 2007
Today at Tocumwal, NSW there is a rally in support of their local doctor.
Doctor Rao has been the only doctor there for may years. He was the main instigator for buiding the hospital there.
In rural Australia,it can be very hard to attract good doctors: Most doctors perfer to stay in the city.
Now it seems there have been some allegations against Dr Rao about his treatment of an elderly patient, and he has been banned from working and is under investigation by the homicide squad. This is depite the fact that many eldely locals have been treated at this hospital, and have died as is natural. A local told me that the general feeling of people is very positive towards this doctor and his practices.
That is why today there is a rally in support of him, meeting at the town hall.
Doctor Rao is from India, and 20 years ago it would have been unthinkable that the town would support someone foreign-born like this. But it shows that the town has accepted him (and others) into their life. A resident of tocumwal said that she hoped this would be an example to nearby towns which have large immigrant populations.
Tocumwal will probably have difficulty replacing their doctor if he is not allowed to resume work, and if they do it wont be a doctor they have known for so long. Without turning this into a debate about euthanasia, Doctors should always have the interests of patients at heart, and they might treat and elderly patient different from a younger one, in terms of the levels of painkillers they are willing to perscribe. There is nothing wrong with this: People who are old and sick deserve to live in dignity.
If all the locals are in support of this doctor, why is there so much interferance from state authorities? Why does the government what to meddle and enforce the law down to the smallest point. People have forgotton what it means to turn a blind eye and get on with life.
Paul
February 25, 2007
