The Underground City

[archerships]

Roger Ebert wants to turn it into a park.

The lease-holder of the 16 acres wants to build four 50 story buildings.

I say do both. But this time build down.


Fred Hapgood
Attache
March, 1998
http://world.std.com/~fhapgood/texts/montreal.htm

For hundreds of years, from Dante's circles of Hell to the sewers of
_Les Miserables_, underground spaces have been portrayed as hellholes
of oppression, monotony, and confinement. And why not? Who wants to
live like a mole, like an ant? As open-minded and flexible as we
humans are about our addresses -- and we can be found in the hottest,
coldest, wettest, and driest neighborhoods on the planet -- it seems
only common sense to draw a line at moving into the realm of cellars,
vaults, and caves.


So a visit to the great underground city of Montreal comes
as a bit of an eye-opener. Even on a glorious day last
September, with the weather offering every inducement to be
outside and on the surface, the 20+ miles of underground
lanes and passageways were flooded. A visitor looking
around would see commuters striding forcefully, tourists
meandering, suits networking, window shoppers appraising,
friends chatting in clusters, Gen-Xers slacking in the
corners of the many street cafes, pensioneers
people-watching, and inevitably, drawn from all over
Quebec, packs of squealing mall rats, chasing through the
crowds like breezes through standing corn. 500,000 people
are said to pass through the Underground every day; some
might suspect even that number was an underestimate.

Yet another species that might be found bobbing on this
tide are planners or designers from other countries, come
to rethink their prejudices about underground space. The
great lesson of modernization is that as income rises,
cities grow. Dozens of cities around the world now have
populations in excess of ten million; when planners look
ahead they see even these populations expanding. At the
same time, as income rises, so does interest in parks and
gardens, open spaces, the preservation of historical
architecture, and escape from the noise, stench, and risks
of the automobile. Planners trying to juggle these goals
and trends keep finding themselves vectoring back to the
underground. Because underground development literally
manufactures new real estate, it ameliorates the old
zero-sum squabbling between development and all other
possible uses for the Earth's surface. In theory, assuming
reasonable progress in the construction technologies, it
could do so indefinitely, since the amount of room down
there is for all practical purposes unlimited.

Comments

[klarfax.livejournal.com]

I think the main problem is that building down costs even more than building up, though I'm not totally sure.

Re:

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Yes, it probably does cost more to build down. But it would probably be more resistant to attack, and, at least to my sense of aesthetics, it would be more pleasing to have a park on top.

Of course, ultimately, it should be up to whoever owns the land.

[klarfax.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've always liked the idea of more underground buildings. Too bad about the cost though.