Page 107 - Vertical City
P. 107
Chapter VI
WHERE AND HOW?
The construction of this new small city would cost
around 10 to 15 billion euros 1, and the required funding
would be raised by subscription. Operation and main-
tenance costs should be less that those of our present
cities.
Once the financing is in place, it should be rapidly
built, in five to ten year, as are the new Chinese cities,
to avoid the nuisances provoked by interminable urban
building sites. 2
An economist can easily imagine its realization in
emerging countries where vast agricultural or natural
territories are available, such as in Australia, China
or the USA, but would question its feasibility in “old
Europe” as it is today.
Indeed, it does raise questions of available territory,
cultural acceptance and financing.
1 Like Masdar, but built even more rapidly.
2 This is not in relation to the height of the constructions. In Belgium,
for example, it took thirty years to build the principal part of Lou-
vain-la-Neuve (a low-level city) as it did for the Quartier Nord in
Brussels (a vertical “city”).
