Page 66 - Vertical City

66 The vertical city

munications and data 6 or viaducts for trains, metros
and automobile traffic, while being resigned to aviation
traffic and its nuisances.

These underground networks, which cost an alar-
ming amount of money 7 are progressively realized
thanks to the resources of the “providential state”,
through taxation which is collected, without visibility of
the financial flow between the taxpayer and the bene-
ficiary, as the equilibrium of such calculations is difficult,
if not impossible, to establish. They alienate a significant
surface of the territory.

Their operational cost is also much more expensive
compared to aerial networks, whether, for example, by
loss of energy due to overheating of the cables or the
required ventilation for underground tunnels, to cite
but two examples. This engenders a second set of sup-
plementary and ongoing financial costs.

Their danger of use, fragility and our dependence on
them increases with time.

While the debate as to scarcity of potable water goes
on, leaks in canalizations carrying this water represent
more or less 20% of their global debit all over the world.
The collateral damage of soil and road subsidence and
flooding add to the financial and environmental waste

6 This is not inevitability and reminds me of my admiration in 1992
of the aerial networks of Puebla in Mexico, a classic colonial city if
ever there was one.

7 Conscious of security issues, the European legislature regularly
tightens the rules of construction, operation and maintenance of
underground networks, which increases costs.