Is Earth indomitably real? (was The reality of Manhattan vs. rolling

> > > I feel that a perception of being "outdoors", with natural
> > > insolation, weather, and day/night cycle will be important
> > > features for space habitats if we have any desire for them to
> > > become globally relevant.
> > I was under the impression that Manhattan and other dense metro
> > areas did not incorporate those features, yet remained not only
> > globally relevant but increasingly so.
> >
> > Increasing numbers and proportions of people are living their
> > entire lives inside mixed-use buildings that contain residences,
> > offices, hotel-rooms, retail outlets, restaurants/bars,
> > nightclubs, etc.
> Realistically, this is probably much closer to what real space
> colonies will be like. A space colony is expensive to build, and
> having invested all that expense, you're not going to settle for a
> population of 10k when you can fit in 100k instead -- you'll build
> a dense city, like Manhattan, rather then a sprawling suburb.

Manhattan is hardly dense. If we take its "air rights" to be 1 mile
vertical, its 33.77 mi^2 of area become 33.77 mi^3. Its population
of 1.5 million amounts to only 46,000 per mi^3. For an improved
version, I am thinking more on the order of 1 to 10 million per
mi^3 (52.8 feet cubed, to 24.5 feet cubed, per person) -- though 100
million (11.4 feet cubed, per person) or more per mi^3 would be
feasible.

> Manhattanites can exit their skyscrapers whenever they wish and
> be outdoors, feeling the sun and/or the natural weather. People
> living in space habitats will not be able to come back and forth
> to Earth as easily as somebody living in a skyscraper can exit
> and enter.
>
> When we think about it, we're using two different meanings of
> the word "live" here. "Living" in a space habitat will be more
> like "living" in the United States than like "living" in a
> skyscraper, if see my distinction here.
>
> Now, to come back a bit in your direction, do I think there's
> likely to be such a thing as an O'Neill Cylinder with something
> much like New York layered onto the inner surface? Although
> O'Neill himself was rather repulsed by such an idea, I suspect
> yes.

What I am imagining is an *improvement* upon current dense-metro
design -- featuring greater spatial density, greater social
efficiency, and more market choice, the latter including scenery
choice. Manhattan is not socially efficient, though its raison
detre is to be socially efficient. That is a problem that I
believe can be solved -- with a *better* city. A New York skyline
on the inner surface of an orbital habitat is not in my direction.
In my direction would be a habitat (Earth-based, orbital, or
wherever) consisting of a single structure, featuring rooms.

And what size would those rooms be? Any size. If you want to build
a full-scale ski-lodge -- complete with mountain, real snow, and
ski-lifts -- go for it. If you want to save money by living in
a tiny closet, go for it. Volume-based fees would be paid to the
corporation holding title to the superstructure. If the
superstructure cost the corporation $1 trillion in capital, then
perhaps the fees would need to amount to at least $100 billion
(10%) per year to cover discounting. If such a superstructure were
a 2-mile diameter sphere, then the volume would be 6.17e11 cubic
feet, and the annual discounting-fee per cubic foot would be 16.2
cents. If 10 million people lived in the structure, they would
each be obligated to pay, on average, $10,000 per year. This
would be well within the range of current Manhattan HOA
(Home-Owner's Association) dues, the greatest of which are north
of $3,000 per month = $36,000 per year.

If you, as an independent entrepreneur, had a hunch that you could
market a park of a given size, then you could act on that hunch by
renting space in the superstructure, building a park in that
space, and marketing it -- through subscription, time-share,
on-demand access, or however you liked. If the public wanted
bigger parks, private solutions-providers would be free to
competitively fill the need.

One difference between "Earth" and an "enclosed" building is
sightlines. (As you say, "People living in space habitats will not
be able to come back and forth to Earth as easily as somebody
living in a skyscraper can exit and enter. "Earth" does not
feature infinite sightlines, so we would not be competing against
an indomitable competitor. The question then might become one of
how far the sightlines would need to be in order to sufficiently
attract tennancy, except for the fact that by enabling a
free-market whereby independent solution's providers can respond
to market demands for Earthiness, we do not have to engage in
command-and-control-style guessing.

"Earth" has other differences, and independent solutions providers
would be free to cater to demand for any of those as well, but
more important is that we consider the fact that "Earth" itself
is not entirely "real". To some degree, any given "authentic"
experience of "Earth" is simulated. There is no such thing as
infinite authenticity -- despite claims to the contrary by the
jewelry and real-estate markets (and we might even note that
real-estate itself is in fact a type of jewelry). Therefore, again,
we would not be competing against an indomitable competitor.
Satisfaction for the jewelry we call "Earth" can potentially be
engineered and marketed to levels sufficient to quench
"home"-sicknesses. Substitions can be engineered, and that
engineering can be left up to a free market of entrepreneurs.

The first level of proof-of-concept would entail placing
structures, on the order of a cubic-mile in volume each, next to
current dense-metros and with efficient transportation in between,
and seeing if they could act as social-magnets sufficient to draw
tennancy levels needed for commercial success -- e.g. seeing if
they could compete well in an established market. If people got
homesick within this Stage1 building, they would do so right here
on Earth, and they would be free to let us know through classic
market signals -- such as, for example, dropping our business.

Once the buildings were sufficiently refined, Stage2 would
simulate an intended isolation, and Stage3 would entail the
actual isolation (orbit, asteroid, Luna, Mars, wherever).