A Floating City???

According to a CNN article researchers are only 3 years away from building a floating city off the coast of San Francisco. The plans speculate that these “floating cities”, that are being dreamed up across the country, will be similar to oil rigs but with more emphasis on sunlight and open-spaces. The idea has even come up to have the city buildings themselves changeable so the city structures can be changed. But why make them?

The designers themselves have stated that the new cities will be a great way to try out new governmental ideas such as legalizing marijuana and relaxing copyright laws. By building these cities far enough of the coast they can claim sovereignty and write their own laws. This sounds like a really expensive way to get to legally smoke pot. Not to mention once you’re outside of the boarders of the United States you lose the protection of that nice little military force that they have. It seems to me there are much easier ways to "puff the reefer" if you will. For example, moving to Amsterdam. If downloading pirated music is more your thing you can move to Sweden. They really don’t care about copyright laws there. You don’t have to spend three years designing a city in the middle of the ocean to download music high.

There is really no reason to make these cities. It will be ridiculously expensive and require high maintenance. There is perfectly solid, undeveloped land right in the middle of the U.S. Let’s also not forget about things like hurricanes and tsunamis. The floating city is just a catastrophe waiting to sink. The only access to the island will be by helicopter or boat. This will make for a nice social environment as long as you like every person on the rig. The feat of engineering seems like it will be more of a prison on the water than the paradise they advertise. I suspect the residents will crave regular trips back to the mainland.

I foresee these floating cities as total flops. But hey, if people are willing to pay for them, then let them do it. It’s not my call as long as it isn’t my money.