Chapter 119: The Weight of the City

Accompanied by Stark's narration, a model of a future city gradually emerged in Schiller's mind.

Just as Stark said, this is indeed very suitable for Cat Getan.

The main problem with Cat Getan right now is that no matter how the logistics system is modified, it will always remain in a state of extreme saturation, which means there is no redundancy left for any unexpected situations.

Don't forget, the future Cat Getan stage is full of accidents, various villains take turns appearing, and natural and man-made disasters follow one after another. If the city were to be paralyzed for half a day every time an accident occurred, it might as well not develop at all; everyone would be exhausted just from constant patching and mending.

But now, Stark has unexpectedly proposed the concept of a three-dimensional city. Calling it a three-dimensional city isn't quite accurate; it's more of a brand-new honeycomb city, where each honeycomb is an independent structure, each containing its own independent ecosystem, much like the Living Hell.

To achieve this, building one structure after another on a flat plane is not enough; space cannot be fully utilized, so a three-dimensional structure must be created.

Roads can do more than just cling to the ground; they can also weave through the city. Parking lots and parks can also be built in mid-air, and apartments and residences can be stacked three-dimensionally.

In fact, this concept was proposed long ago, but as Stark said, Cat Getan is simply a perfect experimental site because here, due to certain historical development reasons, many areas of Cat Getan have spontaneously formed this pattern, such as the Living Hell.

Indeed, the Living Hell is a slum, extremely dirty and chaotic, but that does not mean it is not part of a three-dimensional city. The Living Hell has initially achieved the most critical characteristics Stark mentioned: regional independence, extremely high space utilization, and an independent urban ecosystem.

This means that as long as the problems of water supply, power supply, and living environment within it are solved, a small honeycomb unit will have been completed.

And the same goes for other areas of Cat Getan; as long as they are renovated one by one, one honeycomb after another will be directly completed.

By then, one only needs to combine these honeycombs and glue them together with a transportation system that connects the entire city, and Cat Getan City could become a true three-dimensional city.

This is Cat Getan's unique advantage; for other cities to achieve this structure, they would almost have to tear down the entire city and rebuild it.

The version of the publication plan Bruce brought out was actually already very advanced. In Bruce's version, he designed a modern city that was almost perfect, from the urban ecosystem to the logistics system. The only problem was that to achieve this effect, it would basically be equivalent to tearing down Cat Getan and rebuilding it.

The manpower, material resources, and various costs required for this are simply an astronomical figure. The reconstruction of such a mega-city is something even the Wei En Group can barely handle.

Moreover, reconstruction would lead to a large number of people needing to be relocated, which is exactly what gives Bruce and Falcone a headache.

You can't just say that because you want to tear down houses, everyone should go live on the street, right?

And to relocate these people, new houses must be built. In this way, all construction costs and time costs would double. Precisely because of this, they felt this plan could only serve as a final backup plan, and they hoped Schiller could provide a better suggestion.

Stark is indeed worthy of being a genius cursed by knowledge. Perhaps it's not a knowledge problem, but compared to Batman, he is more unrestrained and creative.

A three-dimensional city—even up to this era in Marvel, no city has successfully implemented it. Perhaps there are some cities that naturally possess this attribute due to terrain conditions, but they haven't fully realized it either; they might just have a prototype in a small area.

But if this plan were applied to Cat Getan, it would indeed achieve the effects of low reconstruction costs, short investment time, and leaving behind plenty of traffic redundancy.

Soon, the enthusiastic Stark used Jarvis's computing power to provide a detailed plan, divided into three versions and six renovation schemes. Then, he proudly put his hands on his hips and said, "Now, who is the greatest genius in the world? Of course, it's Stark!"

"Indeed." After seeing this plan, Bruce gave an answer: "This friend of yours is indeed a genius."

Although he didn't understand why the symbiote in his brain let out a series of terrified gurgles after seeing the handwriting above and then hid away, Bruce still felt very satisfied with this.

"Is he interested in developing in Cat Getan? The Wei En Group will give him a quite good reward," Bruce asked.

"That's probably difficult. He actually doesn't lack money, and he thinks highly of himself; I'm afraid he won't be employed by anyone."

"A common ailment of geniuses," Bruce said, but he didn't think much of it. There are many geniuses in this world; it's impossible for them all to work for him. Besides, with Cat Getan's reputation, basically no one who isn't brain-damaged would come.

After showing this proposal to the construction planning experts they hired at a high price, everyone was amazed. In this era, without the help of computers, general urban planning schemes wouldn't provide too many details, mostly confirming them only after actual construction begins.

But because Stark had the help of Jarvis, an epoch-making super artificial intelligence, the plan he provided could basically be said to be more detailed than a Lego assembly manual, almost precise to the height of every wall, the load-bearing range of every pillar, the way every wire is laid, and so on.

Simply put, if you take this data and build it step by step, you would get a brand-new Cat Getan City as easily as assembling building blocks.

And because the scale of the changes is relatively small, most are additions, so there is no need for large-scale personnel migration and resettlement; at most, small-scale migration during the repair of original buildings, which is completely within the acceptable range of Falcone and the Wei En Group.

Schiller made a suggestion to them: one cannot become fat in one bite. There is no need to start from the most difficult part; one can completely find the simplest place to carry out the renovation. Anyway, if any mistakes occur, it won't get any worse than it already is.

That's right, this place is the Living Hell. The living environment here is truly beyond words. Bruce and Falcone have both been here, and they agreed with Schiller's point of view: no matter how this hellhole is changed, it won't be worse than it is now.

Thus, the pilot project for the first phase of Cat Getan City's renovation plan was placed in the Living Hell.

The Living Hell certainly has residents, and a lot of them. Hearing that it was going to be renovated, they were unwilling but had no choice. If it were just the Wei En Group, that would be one thing, but the key is that there is also the Falcone family, the leader of all Cat Getan gangs. They simply couldn't resist. Hearing there was compensation, they already planned to take the money and move out, never to return.

But to their surprise, this renovation was not a grand, earth-shattering demolition and reconstruction, but more akin to patching and mending.

First, a construction team composed of gang families hired a large group of people to clean the place inside and out.

Originally, the Living Hell had no garbage disposal facilities; most of the garbage was thrown directly out the windows, which led to this place becoming a huge garbage dump. Just cleaning out this garbage took hundreds of people and several days.

Immediately after, the water conservancy engineering team entered and began a comprehensive renovation of the water pipes here. According to Stark's design drawings, the domestic water facilities of the three-dimensional city not only included full access to tap water but, of course, also included solar water heaters and water purification devices.

Schiller directly omitted the water heater step; Gothamites aren't that particular. It's only 1987 now; if they want hot water, can't they boil it themselves?

But the water purification device was indeed necessary. This was when Bruce stepped in. He set up a regional water purification pump, buried underground in each honeycomb city module, used to purify and filter the regional circulating water, and also to facilitate the discharge of boiled water into the sea after filtration.

Batman's actions are naturally extraordinary. The power of this water purification device was already fully capable of meeting the needs of domestic water recycling, and it was also very environmentally friendly.

Immediately after, it was the laying of water pipes to connect to tap water. The entire Living Hell had more than 2,800 water usage points. Upon completion, it had almost achieved comprehensive water access to every household, and there was no longer a need to use public wells or water pumps.

Next was the entry of the power system. This part was also designed by Bruce himself. Cat Getan City's electrical energy is actually quite sufficient, but the utilization rate is not high.

The wires and antennas that those people in the Living Hell had randomly strung up were all removed. Originally, Stark had already used Jarvis to calculate the best circuit design plan. When implemented, Batman also stepped in to carry out further localization modifications. After the circuit laying was completed, it was possible to have not a single wire visible in the entire city, yet the electrical energy utilization rate was extremely high, and there were no power outages all day.

After that, there was the issue of gas and heating, and the solutions were basically the same.

In addition, the passages inside the Living Hell were also refined. The original dozens of intestinal-like passages were combined with the buildings, widened, and connected in series. Without changing the main body of the large buildings, all corridors and rooms were connected together using the shortest routes.

Based on Stark's design drawings, Bruce also separately designed a passage elevator suitable for the Living Hell. The elevator passages were designed as a grid extending in all directions, while the transport capsules could be transported from residential corridors through the elevator passages to the nearest living area.

In addition, the entire area was equipped with environmental facilities essential for a three-dimensional city, such as a police station branch, an emergency hospital, rooftop parks, ecological forests on the tops of buildings, sports facilities between alleys, and rooftop soccer fields.

Because this was a renovation carried out jointly by several major forces in Cat Getan, the manpower and material resources used far exceeded the demand, and the efficiency was extremely high, with very fast speed.

Most importantly, under the threat of force, there was no need to consider the residents' wishes, and no resident came out to express different opinions or oppose the renovation. Under the full-force renovation of the entire city, the Living Hell was almost quickly built into a complete honeycomb module.

And the last thing to be done was the exterior renovation, including installing more than 6,000 electric lights with sufficient lighting power, reinstalling insulation layers on the exterior walls of the buildings, designing anti-theft measures for windows, adding balconies, and beautifying the building facades.

Inside the buildings, all corridors were repaired, unreasonable apartment layouts were renovated, and the storefronts and shops in the living areas were all rebuilt into modern shops.

In addition, fire-fighting equipment was added, including reserved fire escapes, installation of fire-fighting equipment, and installation of fire sprinklers.

Finally, green space beautification was completed. Although the entire Living Hell area did not have any green space on the ground, the greening area still barely met the standard, including high and low scattered rooftop greening, alley greening, balcony greening, etc.

Thus, when the relocated Living Hell residents moved back, they found themselves living in a place that was familiar yet completely different.

This was a modernized, even futuristic, three-dimensional honeycomb city—dense but not crowded, accessible in all directions but not chaotic, seemingly lacking this or that, but actually well-equipped. It seemed as if everything appeared where it shouldn't, yet it was very convenient.

More importantly, besides practical functions, the aesthetics also reached their peak.

A forest of steel rose from the ground, metal passage handrails became branches, countless bright lights became leaves. Amidst the dancing light spots, the vitality growing within the cold steel skeleton perfectly matched this crazy city. Shadows moved, light and dark intertwined, cold and warm stacked, the city became increasingly huge, and humans appeared even smaller.

It is only 1987 now, an era when most cities are still just high-rises and highways. Such a cyberpunk-style city would be cutting-edge even in the 21st century; placed in the present, it can be said to be shocking.

And this is not just to improve the quality of life for citizens. More importantly, two overpasses run through the center of this modular city, which directly triples the transport capacity of the entire street.

Many truck drivers simply stopped taking the ground-level highway in the adjacent block and switched to the overpass. The transport capacity of this area instantly soared. Moreover, once an accident occurs on one road, signs will light up at the entrance, so drivers can completely choose another road, which leaves considerable redundancy for logistics transport.

——————Side Note——————

10,000 words today, begging for votes!

That's right! This book has been renamed!

As for why it's this name, because it would be a duplicate name if it were shorter, and they wouldn't let me use it. Plus, it needs some gimmicks to attract new readers. It's better than before, right! (Hands on hips)