solarpunk Dawnville (part 3)
@Dgmc2013, @Tonraq, @ByeByeBayou and @Raymond7cn: Thank you very much for your comments, likes and follows 
---
Dawnville, our first solarpunk town, is finally ready and fully developed, with homes, shops and offices, factories, parks, train stations and everything else. Here are some bird-views of our town of tomorrow from various angles.
What? A town of tomorrow? If we're into the future, where are the huge skyscrapers and the flying cars? Where are the holographic advertisements and the industrial-styled farms? Why there is a solar park instead of a nuclear fusion reactor? And, why I can't see any robot, mutant or cyborg in the street of this town, apart from the fact we're right now too high to see them if they does exist there? Because the future doesn't necessary need all those awesome futuristic cliches to be the future. The future can be whatever it likes, but also whatever we want it. We can't know exactly how the future will be like (just watch Back To The Future 2 to see what I mean), but we can choose it and create it. And this is the future I choose to create.
Besides, all the above cliches are just that. Cliches. So, let's try something different. Something familiar but still fresh. Something more positive this time, optimistic and still plausible. And who knows? Maybe we'll add flying cars, nuclear fusion reactors and cyborgs later in our CJ. We're in the future after all. We don't follow rules. We make them, we brake them 
And as you have seen from all those angles, Dawnville is such a green society that sometimes it's not very easy to tell the difference between nature and civilization.
Let's go a bit lower and see the town in better detail. This is the south area, which has the vertical farm, the cemetery, the mayor's house and the water tower. None of my agricultural zones has been developed into farms, so I replaced them with homes and some extra factories next to the south entrance/exit of Dawnville.
The central area has the solar park, the universal temple and all the essential civic services. Most of the commercial buildings sit here too.
And here is the north area, where we'll find the waste management systems and most of Dawnville's industries.
Now let's go even lower and start exploring Dawnville. Now, imagine you live in Dawnville and one of your friends is coming to your town for a while to pay a visit. Of course you want to make a tour for him/her to see some interesting places. But from where do you start? Why, from the power plants of course! 
Our town takes the energy it needs from this solar park, which make sense in a solarpunk scene. The only main difference since the previous entry is the addition of a small distribution substation made by @Pegasus, just to make our power plant slightly more realistic. But we're in the future, so we can imagine it's not an modern substation, but a futuristic power amplifier (like those in SimCity: Cities of Tomorrow) that utilities room-temperature superconductors to make our energy grid more efficient by minimizing the energy losses.
The water tower is still there. No changes since the last time we was it. It provides us with clean water from underground deposits by using nano-filters and new generation pumping systems. Hey, here is a nice magnetic train that transports our Sims fast and safe. Speaking about trains, you'll notice that every corner of the town has bus stops and even subway stations for fast and eco-friendly transportation.
"Subways in small towns? That's not realistic!" Oh, the humanity... 
No changes to our waste material management facilities as well. This is where our trash go. The recycling center turns a fraction of our trash into materials that can be used again, while our incinerator vaporize non-recyclable trash to produce extra energy.
Here is our vertical farm that gives a large enough amount of food to our Sims without taking too mush space and wasting too much resources. Of course one vertical farm can't be enough to support an entire region, so expect more of them in our next towns.
Sims have physical needs, such as food and clean water. They also need to feel safe, to know that if something bad happens they'll not be exposed to sickness, accidents, natural catastrophes etc. A large part of our evolution is intertwined with this and our fear of being vulnerable will always be with us, no matter how strong we'll be in the future. By using technologies such as drones and AIs, we can keep our Sims safe and healthy. Mankind is a social and intelligence species. Let's use our ingenuity and empathy to help each other, not to harm each other.
Another reason we need to keep going is the fear of the unknown. We just don't know everything for the world we live in, and this lack of knowledge can be detrimental for our survival. Knowledge, especially if we apply it wisely and responsibly, not only can solve our problems and prepare us for any challenge our world is going to throw at us, but it can also make our live richer and more awesome, liberating us from any kind of tyranny and unlocking incredibly things that until now we used to imagine them as something impossible. Yes, we need bread and milk to live, but we also need ideas and dreams to live. And those educational buildings are doing their best for this subject.
What kind of governments will be exist in the future? Right now we can't be sure about that, but judging by the today global-scaled challenges such as global warming, the emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence, and the rise of distrust to the modern governments and economic systems, we can only be sure for a very different political scene in the future. Maybe the modern governments will have to adapted, with whatever that follows. Maybe they'll be replaced by something very different, or even they'll be fully obsolete. Who knows? Here is a possible vision, with mayors having access to scientific advisors and AIs in order to be better informed and act accordingly, while asking his/her citizens for extra ideas and thoughts. Kind of mixing technocracy with direct democracy.
What kind of religions will be exist in the future? Right now we can't be sure about that, but judging by the today social debates such as genetics and the meaning of life, the new knowledge we have gain about the universe and ourselves, the emerging technologies such as AI and automation, and a rise of atheism/agnosticism as well as of a general abstention from the modern organized religions in many countries, we can only be sure for a very different religious scene in the future. Maybe the modern religions will have to adapted too, with whatever that follows. Maybe the need of religions will be replaced by something very different, or even they'll be fully obsolete. Who knows? Here is a possible vision, with universal temples acting as a place for medication and worship for everyone. Instead of dedicated on a single religion, this temple open its door and its hug to everybody. It doesn't matter in whichever God you believe. It doesn't matter if you're Jew, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or atheist. It doesn't matter if you have a different perspective about God, or if you don't believe in God at all. Here you'll be surrounded with friends, gladly to listen to you and speak to you.
Now, let's talk about the architecture of Dawnville. Most of the buildings here follow the Barsoomian utilitarianism, an architecture trend that begun during the colonization of Mars. The philosophy of this style is flexibility, safety and functionality over just being pretty. This style was originally applied on the Martian colonies to provide the best conditions for survival and thrive on the harsh environment of the red planet, coming with technologies such as home AIs, virtual reality and auto-repairing systems. No matter how beautiful is your art deco house, if it can't give you enough oxygen to live and protect you from a Martian sandstorm or a solar flair, it's nothing more than a nice-looking death trap.
The benefits of this style are just too great to be ignored. On Earth, Barsoomian utilitarianism comes with all the above benefits of safety and functionality, with the extra benefits of having a very low environmental footprint. Don't let their cyberpunk look fools you, those buildings are much more eco-friendly than how they look. All those Martian-styled buildings also come with solar panels and solar windows, long-live batteries for emergency situations, rain water recycling system, better composting devices etc. And if that's not enough, those buildings are fully recyclable, reducing even more their environmental footprint. So despite its cyberpunk look, Barsoomian utilitarianism is more solarpunk than meets the eye.
Barsoomian utilitarianism is also a fully modular style. Just like on Mars, those buildings are made by prefabricated parts made by 3D printers. The materials that made these parts are high in strength, light in weight, and resistant to foreign factors such as weather and earthquakes, and thanks to their memory characteristics they can repair themselves and allow for design flexibility and better resource utilization. When all those parts are ready, they come together in the construction zone to be assembled by robots. Kind of like building a space station. You can't build it on Earth and then send it as it is into Space. You need to build its modules one by one, then send them into Space one by one, and there you can put them together as you wish. Because the buildings of the future are not monolithic, you can set them up as you wish, allowing you to upgrade the buildings when necessary (for example, by adding an extra roof to an already constructed school), change its setup, and even deconstruct is, move the parts into a new location, and there you can reconstruct the building. Kind of like a big Lego set made by big parts that can be assembled however you wish.
Another benefit of Barsoomian utilitarianism is its accessibly to everybody. The dangerous conditions of Mars made the colonists re-evaluating their original system of values. Nobody should be exposed to the thin atmosphere and the lack of liquid water on the red planet, so everybody should afford a nice and safe house to live, no matter if they're rich or poor. Everybody should have food, water, medicines, safety and education. Mars is dangerous, so everybody should live and prosper. No exceptions! That was the beginning of the Barsoomian utilitarianism, but it was also the very first serious attempts to a new economic system, this time based on the resources instead of money. This kind of equality in access had a serious impact to the society and the economy of Earth as well. Many people loved it and even more hated it, but we'll talk about this in a next entry. For now, here is a fun game. See this picture and try to tell which house belong in which economic level. A little hind though, what you see is not always what you get
Of course not all Sims lives in a Martian-styled home. Some of them still prefer something more old school, such as antiques from 20th century, wooden cabins, and even houses inspired by fantasy themes.
The colonization of Mars has a great impact on Earth, not only in technology and society, but also in culture. This is a Martian-style cemetery. It looks like the cemeteries on Earth, but it's based on a cultural wave from Mars known as Barsoomian sculpture. The colonists on Mars want not just to survive, but to life and thrive. Art makes our life more rich (as a historical event known as The Quarantine of 2020 proved), and when all you have are rocks and sand you'll use them to make art. Barsoomian sculpture uses lasers to cut and even melt pieces of rocks into various shapes. What makes Barsoomian sculpture different from just being another fancy way to say "stone sculpture" is the fuse of the stone with synthetic material (like those that the colonists use to build their colonies) for extra durability and variety in shapes and sizes of the sculpture. Some people on Earth uses the Barsoomian sculpture as a way to express their need to connect themselves with the Cosmos, while many environmentalists have found this type of sculpture as a way to pass the message "less is more" by using advanced technologies, since Barsoomian sculptures can actually described as natural/technological hybrids. And this cemetery is one of those hybrids.
As well as this beautiful female statue, another example of Barsoomian sculpture.
I like diagonal streets, but I don't like the teeth-like jagged edges. Those triangular parks are perfect for my cities and they work as another excuse for me to build even more parks 
We have a big park in the middle of Dawnville and some extra triangular parks as well. So... let's build some extra parks too! Parks are a nice way to cover empty spaces and make my cities more interesting and pretty. After all it's a solarpunk town of the future, so of course we'll plenty of parks.
Dawnville is an eco-friendly town, so the last thing it needs are industries, right? Wrong! We need factories, but not those that pollute the environment. The factories of tomorrow will be equipped with all the necessary anti-polluting technologies to minimize their environmental impact. If a society disrespect the environment, no matter how rich and powerful it is, it's committing suicide, thus its wealth and power are meaningless. And as Dr. Guy McPherson said, "If you really think that the environment is less important than the economy, try holding your breath while you count your money". Of course the game has the bad habit of starting with dirty factories, but here they're so few and small and have so many trees around them, that air purification systems are just not necessary.
Is that a wooden cabin in the middle of the industrial zone? Why, yes. It belongs to nobody, so everybody can use it however they wish, mostly to just sit down, relax and listen to the birds. There is no better place for bird listening in the middle of an industrial zone
The tour to Dawnville in finished, but we must not forget that this town lives not only thanks to its technology and its people, but also thanks to the natural environment it's surrounding it. Outside of the town we'll find a dense forest and a beautiful lake. Look closely and you'll find wild animals, such as foxes, flamingos, deer, buzzards, crows, moose, llamas, wild horses and bears. Those animals can sometimes pay a visit at the town to find something to eat. I'm pretty sure you've already found some buzzards flying around Dawnville during our tour, right? No? Go back to the above pictures and try to find them. The people of Dawnville are doing their best to coexist with those wonderful animals, but that's not always easy. They're still wild animals with which we can't communicate yet, so caution is advised. Feeding a deer or a baby bear might lead into a beautiful friendship or in a crazy mess. So, take care
Of course no matter what we do, we'll always have to disrupt the environment. We're playing SimCity after all, not SimEarth. But our goal is to coexist with it, not to fight it. Look around you. We have already declare war to the environment, and if we win this war we'll lose. Earth can cover our needs, but not our greed and careless, so some ingenuity and creativity is necessary. One example is visual pollution. And yes, that's a thing. Visual pollution is made by making harmful and ugly changes in the natural environment, such as billboards, open storage of trash (another good reason for hating landfills), antennas, electric wires etc, that look so out-of-place that can bring distraction and eye fatigue, and even increase biological stress responses. This sucks because the only way to build some electric connections with other cities is by using the game's ugly power lines. But if we change their color, build the minimum amount of them just to make the connection, and cover their base with high rocks to hide as much of them as possible, the result will be a bit more pleasant.
Yes, you guessed right. Soon a new solarpunk town will join us in Fairview. Dawnville is alone for now, but we're going to change it. We'll give it a friend. And as Bob Ross always said, "everyone needs a friend".
See you there
-
15
12 Comments
Recommended Comments
Sign In or register to comment...
To comment in reply, you must be a community member
Sign In
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In NowCreate an Account
Sign up to join our friendly community. It's easy!
Register a New Account