People are making a lot of good points about boats, but on the other had, I know that indigenous people, poor communities, and communities outside main developed areas use boats a lot just fine! I wonder what the difference is–I was thinking about this earlier. Maybe, in a swamp city (not just water, but kinda salty water, which is even worse), we want to go all in one quick biodegradables–stuff that only lasts for a year or two but then is easily composted. Natural materials, and then digging out the canoes or whatever is a community activity! This wouldn’t work for emergency vehicles, because they wouldn’t be motored and wouldn’t go that fast, but it would prevent big waves from like disrupting houseboats like someone said.

One of the ways that maybe the traditional biomes shown in solarpunk might not translate as well to my city: they really seem to want infrastructure that lasts near-forever, and I literally don’t think that’s possible here. We’re just too storm-battered, too humid, too wet. I’d definitely wanna see what more people think about short-use biodegrades. I know solarpunk hates single-use and waste, but I think maybe this doesn’t count if the materials compost well?

I hate cars and car-centric urbanism, so maybe this is a way to make sure the use of boats doesn’t just become the way cars are in New Orleans today–a slower pace of life, you have to paddle the boat. More like bikes than cars that way/

Hi! Oooh tihs is so cool thanks for playing with this idea with me! Here are some random thoughts, both related to your drawing and not:

-swamps tend to be really shallow, which is why we have the boatcars

-here’s some native swamp plants people can eat: wood sorrel, thistle, red clover, mulberry

-maybe a two-tier public transit system? We have streetcars, it’d be a shame to give them up. maybe there’s parts of the city that are flooded, with houseboats/amphibious vehicles/big parades (the floats could actually float in the water, and instead of tractors they could be pulled by cute little tugboats. and I think the tugboats should have a little paddlewheel like our riverboats, just for fun), and then parts that are not, with buildings on land/streetcars/walking parades on roads.

-I definitely think emergency vehicles should be amphibious vehicles!

-important buildings like a city hospital should be tall and we NEED to have helipads on the roof, both for lifting patients in and for evacuation. So a full rooftop garden wouldn’t be a good idea, but I bet a groundcover plant could work for those roofs, maybe one that soaks up a lot of water? Smaller buildings probably want slanted roofs so water doesn’t pool. Not sure how to solarpunk slanted roofs–we do alright with solarpanels but they do take a beating.

-LOVE the gondola in the air! With our heat, definitely would need GOOD window coverings to block out sun and heat. In general, New Orleans should have smaller and fewer windows than in classic in solarpunk–some of our new office buildings are like all-window, you know that new style? And it sucks in the summer

-NO STAGNANT WATER this is mosquito territory and I hate them both personally and because they’re invasive. Gotta keep ALL WATER moving so they don’t breed

-this is random but based on your drawing, I’m really seeing the main city as being like above the ground/water (also a great way to keep people from getting hit by streetcars or falling into the water, easy to have rails on that if pedestrian walkways are more elevated than not.). Thinking about the Highline in New York–if people are walking, I don’t wanna put on train on it, but there’s such cool plants and seating areas on stuff on that. And I always felt so safe walking on the Highline because it was removed from the cars on the street. I wonder about how we’d drain it during rain–maybe the whole thing could be on a very slght slant that humans don’t notice but then all the water drips off into the canal below

thats SO COOL pls tell him thank you!!

The city right now is sprawled out, so I would expect a solar punk version to correct this by building up instead of out.

You’re definitely right! I wonder how far up we can safely go–we have some tall buildings but they sure take a beating

(1) Hi!! Thanks for the rec and for playing imagine with me, I love thinking about this with people (2) MAJOR shoutout to cromylgames’ thoughts! I forgot, but we actually invented those boats! They were swamp boats first, and the WWII ones were designed and manufactured here, and we actually have the National WWII Museum (a very rare thing, to have a National Museum outside of DC) because of it! They’re so well suited to the area, I can’t believe I forgot about them (3) And likewise, I can’t believe I forgot about the Cajun Navy! When the government absolutely failed during Katrina, a bunch of volunteers with boats came into city (someone illegally lol) to pick people up and evacuate them.

We never do them as doubledeckers, but since this would largely come into play right before and after the hurricanes, not during them, it probably would be fine!!!

Oh this is so cool, thank you!

11. Okay now I’m thinking of like Star Wars-style floating cities. Like Cloud City. But obviously floating on water, not air. Might not be super wind resistant, but if it could just float over flooding…But maybe that wouldn’t be the most pleasant to be inside the house when that happens. Or maybe it’d be super fun?

Things that I’ve been thinking about, or were mentioned on my reddit post:

1. If the homes are built to be easily repaired after hurricanes, they’d be designed to be hurt by them in a certain way. I’m thinking about how cars are designed to crash a certain way. Designed with specific weak points that could be easily fixed, maybe even deliberately biodegradable if it’s only gonna last for a year anyways.
2. If we do that, than the city would definitely have to be more evacuation-focus than hunker-down-focused during major storms. That amount of mass transport wouldn’t be easy.
3. Rural houses in the local fishing villages are on stilts! The first storey is usually around the third storey. It looks super cool, but would probably be filed under disability-hostile. Not sure how to address that in a way that isn’t immediately self-defeating, I feel like we definitely don’t want our elevators to flood.
4. I know we have swampy plantswe could be eating! Where are they! I wanna eat them!
5. Offshore windturbines, both for energy creation and as a windbreak/tidestop
6. Should it be a a water city? Someone brought up Venice, but I bet it’d look more like the canal cities in Southeast Asia. But then how do we do sewage? And I do wanna preserve Mardi Gras, and I really do think we need some streets for that. I’d probably still rank it above sponge-city, I don’t think our sponge would win
7. Thinking about houseboats and bridges, especially for ‘residential city areas’. I’m imagining like those treehouse cities with rope bridges, but also with houseboats!
8. For high-density living, maybe tall buildings with just an empty bottom three floors? I know concrete isn’t ideal, but I’m picturing something like a highschool gym. Just a big empty room. With concrete and high ceilings, it’d stay cool in the summer without needing AC (especially with few windows–I know a lot of solarpunk art loves windows but I think that’s for more temperate zones). They could be third spaces, maybe even like an indoor skate park!
9. In addition to fewer windows than people often think, I definitely wanna bring back awnings over windows. Curtains offer privacy, but window-awnings are much better at blocking sun and heat. They’re kinda out of fashion, but I want to bring them back.
10. I wonder if there’s a good way to plan the highgrounds and lowgrounds–maybe high density housing on the highgrounds, and lowdensity houseboats and swampcrops on the lowgrounds? And let them remain flooded?