This makes me think about how an partially underground city might work. Saudi Arabia would be an ideal location for various reasons.
Imagine a city of 2-3 story buildings at a density similar to South Philly. So you could get 500,000 in a few square miles and a metro system would be viable. Just blocks and blocks of 2-3 story buildings on a grid. Now put all those buildings underground where the lowest floor is 25-40 feet below grade. Or perhaps, raise the ground around them.
Solar tubes would be used to illuminate the inside. Being a bunker would require less energy to cool them, they could be a comfortable 70 F all the time even if it was 120 F outside. Above the ground the roof would be private "yards" for each dwelling and a stairwell/elevator shaft for access to the roads. The rest of the space would be taken up with solar panels.
For every so many blocks there would be a drainage pond 50-60 feet below grade running into a canal that is at a lower elevation than the ground floors of the underground houses so every dwelling would have a gutter that is entirely downhill to an adit so flooding wouldn't be an issue.
Specialized fire apparatus would be used, like a hydraulic bucket truck that would extend a boom downward through a hatch that every structure would have. Every dwelling would be sprinklered.
For a more futuristic touch, each house would have a shaft for a special elevator car that would then run above ground as an automated vehicle on a trackway to a standalone row of private garages. That way these houses wouldn't need to support a car on their roof and everyone would have a private way of going directly from their car to their home.
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30 years ago, no one actually though this was a reality.
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I think that was 20 years ago.
I remember SkyCity only because discovery channel had a show about it. That was peak cable, I was like 13 years old and loved the shit out of that stuff.