What stands in the way of building arcologies?
The most minimalistic useful arcology would be a gigantic steel beam supporting a platform or several simply to serve as additional land area.
As far as I can tell, this is economically viable, if you've got a way to create a gigantic beam of solid (or at least in concentric layers) steel on-site. The goal for an arcology pillar would probably be a beam 10 metres wide (with some tapering) and 100 metres high, which would be about 38 million USD in raw material costs assuming 4800 USD per cubic metre for steel.
Such a pillar could support utterly absurd weight, 1 gigatonne should be well within safety margins. The Twin Towers together weighed about that much.
Is the problem just that there's no reasonable way to make such a pillar?
The most minimalistic useful arcology would be a gigantic steel beam supporting a platform or several simply to serve as additional land area.
As far as I can tell, this is economically viable, if you've got a way to create a gigantic beam of solid (or at least in concentric layers) steel on-site. The goal for an arcology pillar would probably be a beam 10 metres wide (with some tapering) and 100 metres high, which would be about 38 million USD in raw material costs assuming 4800 USD per cubic metre for steel.
Such a pillar could support utterly absurd weight, 1 gigatonne should be well within safety margins. The Twin Towers together weighed about that much.
Is the problem just that there's no reasonable way to make such a pillar?
