Floating Communities (Part 3)

Clearly there are several elements to this system which have not been addressed. From where for instance will these communities recieve their building materials and and other ressources? Will food be grown aboard the vessels, or will they depend on shipments from the land? How will transport from the vessels to land be carried out? Currently one of the benefits of a land-based community system is that through the use of automobiles the movement of each individual is relatively inexpensive and highly independent. The creating of floating communities would undoubtedly change this.

A shift from land to ocean requires more than just the solution of technical problems. It requires a shift in the thinking of how people perceive the ocean. For all of history we have been terrestrial animals, and while we have flocked to the coast and created communities that thrive on the ressources and environment provided by the ocean we have not permanently shifted major parts of society unto its surface. Admittedly for much of this history we did not possess the technology that would permit us to make such a transition. Could society make such a transition? Could we leave behind our terrestrial roots, at least in part, and move unto the moving waters of the oceans? Or perhaps such a shift would not be such a shift as one would think.

Already much of society lives in an environment cast completely by man, with skyscrapers of glass replacing mountains, light poles taking the place of trees, and flowing streams of traffic moving along in much the same way that the waters of a river are bound and channeled. And yet while we have created these custom environments that occupy great expanses of land, we still try to use the land in its natural state (relatively). This is referring to the growth and collection of food. Far as we have come, we have not yet removed our dependecy upon the land to provide for us what we cannot wholly create for ourselves. As such we depend on the natural processes and requirements that the land demands in order to comply to our own demands. These needs of the land are threatened and challenged by our further exploitation and expansion across its surface. Water sources are polluted, land is degraded by toxic runoff, farmland is turned into housing projects, and all the while our demands go up and up.

All these problems will not be solved by humans foresaking the land and embracing the ocean, but rather by attempting to live in what has been up till now a more hostile and alien environment (for humans at least) human society will be forced to become effecient. Waste will be reduced, development will be planned, communities will be created and organized so as to maximize potential for the entire populace, rather than for the elite few. And most importantly, it will give society the chance at a fresh start to its organization and place within the world. It will supply the opportunity to evaluate impact and fully influence the environment from a constructive and proactive position.