The general thinking on building down rather than up is it gives a tremendous reduction in resources in terms of what's required to build it. There would be a great deal of energy required to fuel the drilling / digging equipment but that's true to some extent building upward as well. However, there's vastly less in raw materials required for the construction.
The general schematic is to build satellite rock cities around the existing metropolises. When the rock cities have functionally supplanted the metropolis, flatten it and get rid of it. The object is to make beautiful things to your twisted design in the center of the rock satellite complex.
Power
Underground nuclear reactors which have multiple advantages, primary of which is we don't get toasted if one blows. We have seen this from underground nuclear weapons testing since they don't break the surface when they explode. The biggest problems with nukes are disposing of excess heat from cooling and disposing of the spent fuel. In the case of the rock cities, the heat is not a waste product but rather will be used to heat the cities which will have little need for air conditioning but consistent need for heat. The spent fuel will be disposed, as planned decades ago, at Yucca Flats.
Transportation
The problem to solve is people currently live in ground-level satellite locations around downtown areas and then commute in and out of those central loci. This causes immense traffic problems, tremendous loss of productivity, huge waste of resources, etc, etc. However, our rock cities will externalize those functions from downtown areas to greatly reduce that type of need since people will live much closer to wherever they work. We also anticipate greatly improved tube transportation between the rock city satellites such as HyperLoops, etc.
The overall purpose is to end the Age of Cars which has been the most egregiously wasteful humans have ever created. We need a better way and the rock cities are one way to do it.
Supply
By the time the rock city construction moves up to full-bore, autonomous big-rig trucks should be providing ground-level supply support and this part we have no immediate plan of changing. The country needs a national level supply network and the only way to get more efficiency than big trucks is with trains but each is needed at different levels of the supply hierarchy.
Test models of the autonomous trucks are already on the road so the technology will be there but we need more robotization since we want 'droids to unload them. The rock city needs large-scale service elevators which can support the trailers from the big-rigs and the 'droids deliver them to wherever in the complex they're supposed to go and subsequently unload them. The technology shouldn't be such a big deal. When a 'droid can drive the truck to the destination, it shouldn't be a giant leap beyond that to unload it.
Sociology
Our homes frequently have quite grandiose external manifestations from some type of Hollywood star syndrome which mandates the biggest possible house to indicate the greatest level of success. Yeah, and that's all very well until you have to put siding on it.
In the rock city, the external aspect of your home is not likely to be spectacular and is more likely to be a stone wall. Put murals on it if you like but beyond that you're not likely to be inclined to spend much money on it.
Since cars will be largely eliminated and homes won't have much potential for external displays, the potential for posturing success in such ways will be greatly reduced and there's not likely to be any negative consequence from that. It might come that instead of using cars and homes in that way such displays would move to our clothing and it will get so outrageous as to make a garden party at Versailles look like an Alabama hog roast.
These sorts of things are likely to have large effects on the people since we see how much people devote to external displays now. When that becomes difficult or pointless, the 'energy' will focus elsewhere and what a study in that.
Note: don't read this to mean your home is going to be a dreary rock cave since you could make it a grotto like from Colossal Cave if you can afford it. The difference between this and an existing home is the privacy since there are no windows. You can do whatever you like with the inside of your home and no-one can judge it in any way unless you invite them inside.
And if you hate satellite surveillance, don't expect a whole lot of it underground. That sucks for the NSA but no-one likes them anyway.
Plans, Big Plans, and Hare-Brain Plans
Your first thought likely is to dismiss the Rock Cities as vapor from the stoner and dream on, Ganja Man. However, stoned as we may be and we definitely are, we notice the only one with any plans to do anything is Elon Musk. We love this guy and he has beautiful plans for cities but we have one tiny problem with that: they're on Mars. The vision and scope of his plan is magnificent but it won't change matters on Earth.
We don't see anyone else with so much as a bridge project so we're going to hang on to the Rock City idea for a while.
Note: don't be busting me with 'we can't afford it' because you know bloody well why things are not affordable and we're not willing to play Three Card Monte with the military while pretending it has anything to do with economics.
Consider "Ringworld" in which Larry Niven dreamed up a structure so gigantic it filled the entire orbital path around a sun. That and the Rock Cities are in the category of things for which even if you dream big they still probably won't happen but the alternative is not dreaming at all and that's not acceptable.
Note: I'm not writing a book except for the outline and that part is the most 'fun' anyway.
I'm not sure if things I see are difficult to see for anyone else. Perhaps cynicism makes clouds and people don't see something simply because it's obscured by disbelief. The part which isn't so clear is after we build all these rock cities, what happens after that.
We strongly suspect as disparities in wealth are resolved around the world, the imbalances in population reproductive rates will stabilize. Since the stabilized rate in developed nations is not high enough to sustain population growth, it's conceivable a time will come when humans are being encouraged to reproduce.
Maybe that seems outlandish but consider extensions to lifespan since it's not terribly uncommon for people to live to nearly one hundred now. With the immense research on life extension taking place, let's go with one hundred and fifty years in lifespan in the relatively near future. So, stabilized young people who have a reasonably good expectation of good jobs, you're going to live for one hundred and thirty more years so how about having a baby now. I'm betting a whole lot of them will decline.
There's some interesting sociology likely to come after we get past the bestial age in which we fumble about now. Get past that and all manner of wonderful things could happen.
The general schematic is to build satellite rock cities around the existing metropolises. When the rock cities have functionally supplanted the metropolis, flatten it and get rid of it. The object is to make beautiful things to your twisted design in the center of the rock satellite complex.
Power
Underground nuclear reactors which have multiple advantages, primary of which is we don't get toasted if one blows. We have seen this from underground nuclear weapons testing since they don't break the surface when they explode. The biggest problems with nukes are disposing of excess heat from cooling and disposing of the spent fuel. In the case of the rock cities, the heat is not a waste product but rather will be used to heat the cities which will have little need for air conditioning but consistent need for heat. The spent fuel will be disposed, as planned decades ago, at Yucca Flats.
Transportation
The problem to solve is people currently live in ground-level satellite locations around downtown areas and then commute in and out of those central loci. This causes immense traffic problems, tremendous loss of productivity, huge waste of resources, etc, etc. However, our rock cities will externalize those functions from downtown areas to greatly reduce that type of need since people will live much closer to wherever they work. We also anticipate greatly improved tube transportation between the rock city satellites such as HyperLoops, etc.
The overall purpose is to end the Age of Cars which has been the most egregiously wasteful humans have ever created. We need a better way and the rock cities are one way to do it.
Supply
By the time the rock city construction moves up to full-bore, autonomous big-rig trucks should be providing ground-level supply support and this part we have no immediate plan of changing. The country needs a national level supply network and the only way to get more efficiency than big trucks is with trains but each is needed at different levels of the supply hierarchy.
Test models of the autonomous trucks are already on the road so the technology will be there but we need more robotization since we want 'droids to unload them. The rock city needs large-scale service elevators which can support the trailers from the big-rigs and the 'droids deliver them to wherever in the complex they're supposed to go and subsequently unload them. The technology shouldn't be such a big deal. When a 'droid can drive the truck to the destination, it shouldn't be a giant leap beyond that to unload it.
Sociology
Our homes frequently have quite grandiose external manifestations from some type of Hollywood star syndrome which mandates the biggest possible house to indicate the greatest level of success. Yeah, and that's all very well until you have to put siding on it.
In the rock city, the external aspect of your home is not likely to be spectacular and is more likely to be a stone wall. Put murals on it if you like but beyond that you're not likely to be inclined to spend much money on it.
Since cars will be largely eliminated and homes won't have much potential for external displays, the potential for posturing success in such ways will be greatly reduced and there's not likely to be any negative consequence from that. It might come that instead of using cars and homes in that way such displays would move to our clothing and it will get so outrageous as to make a garden party at Versailles look like an Alabama hog roast.
These sorts of things are likely to have large effects on the people since we see how much people devote to external displays now. When that becomes difficult or pointless, the 'energy' will focus elsewhere and what a study in that.
Note: don't read this to mean your home is going to be a dreary rock cave since you could make it a grotto like from Colossal Cave if you can afford it. The difference between this and an existing home is the privacy since there are no windows. You can do whatever you like with the inside of your home and no-one can judge it in any way unless you invite them inside.
And if you hate satellite surveillance, don't expect a whole lot of it underground. That sucks for the NSA but no-one likes them anyway.
Plans, Big Plans, and Hare-Brain Plans
Your first thought likely is to dismiss the Rock Cities as vapor from the stoner and dream on, Ganja Man. However, stoned as we may be and we definitely are, we notice the only one with any plans to do anything is Elon Musk. We love this guy and he has beautiful plans for cities but we have one tiny problem with that: they're on Mars. The vision and scope of his plan is magnificent but it won't change matters on Earth.
We don't see anyone else with so much as a bridge project so we're going to hang on to the Rock City idea for a while.
Note: don't be busting me with 'we can't afford it' because you know bloody well why things are not affordable and we're not willing to play Three Card Monte with the military while pretending it has anything to do with economics.
Consider "Ringworld" in which Larry Niven dreamed up a structure so gigantic it filled the entire orbital path around a sun. That and the Rock Cities are in the category of things for which even if you dream big they still probably won't happen but the alternative is not dreaming at all and that's not acceptable.
Note: I'm not writing a book except for the outline and that part is the most 'fun' anyway.
I'm not sure if things I see are difficult to see for anyone else. Perhaps cynicism makes clouds and people don't see something simply because it's obscured by disbelief. The part which isn't so clear is after we build all these rock cities, what happens after that.
We strongly suspect as disparities in wealth are resolved around the world, the imbalances in population reproductive rates will stabilize. Since the stabilized rate in developed nations is not high enough to sustain population growth, it's conceivable a time will come when humans are being encouraged to reproduce.
Maybe that seems outlandish but consider extensions to lifespan since it's not terribly uncommon for people to live to nearly one hundred now. With the immense research on life extension taking place, let's go with one hundred and fifty years in lifespan in the relatively near future. So, stabilized young people who have a reasonably good expectation of good jobs, you're going to live for one hundred and thirty more years so how about having a baby now. I'm betting a whole lot of them will decline.
There's some interesting sociology likely to come after we get past the bestial age in which we fumble about now. Get past that and all manner of wonderful things could happen.
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