You're going to hear a lot more of this...

NPR has (just this morning) highlighted a concern that I have noted before. More than once. Here's a link to their report:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93842128

Now, maybe it seems superfluous to say, but our current model of housing doesn't work. We build homes in ever increasing numbers at distances that are also increasing from our places of business and shopping and school and everything. The only thing that exists out where we are is us.

This presents a burden on infrastructure in our cities, pushing service demands further and further away from where they can most efficiently be handled. Roads, water and sewer, drainage, even garbage pick up services are all being stretched to the limit. As property values decrease, the burden on these services becomes greater. It is further exacerbated by rising energy costs.

So what's the answer? I propose that one solution may be a return to the "nuclear city" - a city which looks a lot like the old diagram of the atom. Remember that from high school physics? It turns out that it is wrong, but the diagram is intriguing. Imagine a city that has a central core surrounded by a gradually decreasing density of residences and services...

Instead of the current "plum pudding" model, with it's various and varied random places of density and services, with an overall low density demand taxing the services and infrastructure, the nuclear model would make logical sense. We could expand such a model to it's logical limits (say around 30,000 people) and then move on to the next space. This kind of model has been tried before, with varied success.

The main problem with this way of thinking is just that - thinking. It's a psychological exercise to imagine such a world - where one piece of land is not inherently more valuable than others. But there have always been areas which are more desirable - better access to water, farming, services, shopping, shipping, or salt domes, for example. In order for this kind of thing to work, we would have to abandon these kinds of land valuations and move to a more egalitarian ideal.

I know, it's the ideal again. But hey, if no one is dreaming, how will innovation ever take place?

WHY NOT?