Cities in space - Singles or clusters?

L4 and L5 are going to be supercontinents.

Excuse me for romantic visions but I imagine space islands much more
like islands in space like the Puget sound of my childhood. Linked by
a system of Ferries with specific routes.

Some people may wish to keep their communities small and retain the
Island Two configuration. Others may wish to advance to Island Threes
and build even larger Island Fours.

How they live inside is up to the communities but I surmise that an
Island Three can be broken down into Twelve Counties, each with its
own council and mayor. And though I believe our current American
system is top heavy, each Island three can be counted as a state. A
collection of Island Twos can form a state. States can form to gather
to form natians. Some may wish to go it alone.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Darren wrote:
>
> Greetings list-members,
>
> All the talk about how things would be paid for in space and what
kind of
> currency would be used got me to thinking, now I know that this
question has
> probably come up before but maybe we can look at it from a
different angle,
> so I have a hypothetical.
>
> First, let me arrange the setting, the time is the future, maybe a
hundred
> years or even a thousand years from now, assuming they have a tame
> worm-hole, star trek transporters, super cheap spaceships that can
be used
> like the family car with a dollar per tonne costs, anti-gravity
devices,
> some new kind of physics or even magic pixie dust but getting to
orbit is no
> harder than catching a train or bus from Canberra to Sydney (hey, I
am in
> Australia :), people got a dose of the smarts (or the laws stopped
the
> terraformers) and other than small outposts on the planets/moon and
the odd
> diehard Mars or nothing, all the space colonies are orbital,
various styles,
> torus, sphere, cylinder and others. Given that with an Island 3
type habitat
> you you begin to have problems with the wasted space of all that
air above
> you, there is a practical limit where it is not profitable to build
them too
> big.
>
> So, my question is;
> What kind of arrangement would the habitats be arranged into?
>
> I know that there will be a number of solutions but for the most
part would
> they be singles (with an Island 3, by a single I mean the two
cylinders
> joined together), small clusters, either joined or just in close
proximity,
> giant clusters with thousands of habs, a mixed cluster a
collection of
> small joined clusters grouped together in large groups or some
other system
> that I havent thought of.
>
> Some of my own thoughts, Australia is a very large country but with
a small
> population (just 20 million or about the population of New York
state) and
> while we have lots of valuable resources our workforce is small and
the
> income producing power is also small, a bigger population would help
> generate a greater wealth base. When I hear about some group
pushing to
> break away from a nation I want to shake them and ask if they have
thought
> about the income problems they are wanting for themselves, before
people
> start emailing me about the other reasons why people want
independence,
> dont, I do know, I am just making a point. So like the EU and the
euro (and
> I know about some of the problems they have been having) grouping
together
> can have advantages and being near together can also have
advantages.
>
> That being the case I think that apart from the odd singleton (for
> political/religious/ideological or even racial purity
reasons)
> they are going to be in clusters and mega-clusters. Consider a
cluster of a
> few dozen island 3s (population of 5 to 10 million each) in a
frame that
> keeps them aligned and in place, it could be used to run trains
through,
> transfer power and goods. Two island 3s (when I refer to an island
3 I mean
> a 2 cylinder unit) with a pop of 10 million each would be the equal
to
> Australia, bring that up to 30 habs and you now have a population
of 300
> million, that is now a bigger population than that of the USA, with
access
> to energy and resources, this is a seriously wealth cluster.
>
> If we call that a nation and then group a dozen such clusters
together,
> population 3.6 billion, to make a ... What to call it ... A union? A
> commonwealth?, well, Australia is part of the Commonwealth so I
think Ill
> use that, this commonwealth would be the equal to 12 Americas, one
hell of
> a trade block. There a lot of advantages to groups of habs being
close
> together besides economic, one of the common strikes against
habitats is
> that once you are there you have no place to go, it gets boring,
having a