In "Where Is My Flying Car", Hall argues that what we really value in cities isn't necessarily physical density, but *temporal* density—ie low travel time. If all points were 5x further apart, but we move 5x faster, we'd prefer it: everyone could have more space. Is this right? /
Conversation
Replying to
One reason I like cities is definitely proximity to services and friends. Dozens of excellent restaurants and people within a thirty minute trip. But I also like running into people randomly, serendipitously. Living in a city is like shaking a fuller snow globe!
2
2
54
Not sure if temporal density is equivalent to physical density for the purposes of serendipity. If I only run into people at destinations, then there'd be no change if everything were spread out: the same people visit the same restaurants. But I run into people while walking!
4
40
Anyway, this book probably has the highest viewquake/page ratio of the year for me! I thought it was going to be about the history/prospects of flying cars… but that's just a framing device for a sweeping discussion of tech bottlenecks+possibilities.
2
3
55
One fun way to describe this book: the narrative is a sort of glue which holds together a non-stop parade of Fermi estimates.
These results are probably much less surprising to a physicist, but snippets like this are truly shocking to me!
5
2
55
Replying to
Space isn't just physical it's mental too. Connecting everything with teleporters literally puts everything on top of each other. Having work a 20 minute walk from home is far enough to physically change your state of mind. Physical and mental distances are intimately connected.
9
Replying to
I think you'll also dig Geoffrey West's Scale — I'm about halfway through it and it points at some mind-blowing fundamental mathematics about how things scale nonlinearly (organisms, companies, cities)
teaser in this thread:
Quote Tweet
Cities are attractors because of superlinear real-productivity scaling. Now that we can do collaboration with anyone in the world, we can have a single global virtual city. Then way less need to pack tightly!
= summary of @jgreenhall's Civium concept 
youtube.com/watch?v=yXBAtd
youtube.com/watch?v=yXBAtdShow this thread
1
7
Replying to
Seems very odd to say at all that people value physical density - most people hate it and only put up with it because of other things (incl temporal density, but that's one in a long list). So I am slightly skeptical of the initial framing which seems to be squishing words.
2
8
I think he's write in that people outside of cities could (should) write the book called "Where Is My Short Trip?"
1
5
Show replies
Replying to
Not for me, no. Even assuming that the externalities of flying cars were minimal (verging on impossible, IMO), if I were traveling much faster over a much larger city, I'd miss out on all the chance meetings and discovery that I have moving about.
1
1
Show replies