Our planet is two-thirds covered with water, and climatologists fear that due to global warming, the land area will decrease even more. Therefore, the idea of cities on water is becoming relevant. Including because these cities promise freedom.
FLOATING CITIES
Probably the first who came up with the idea that cities could be built afloat was the famous French science fiction writer Jules Verne. In 1870 he published the novel The Floating City. When writing, Verne drew inspiration from his voyage on the largest six-masted steamer of the time, the Great Eastern, the British transatlantic liner, launched in 1858 and embodying the cutting edge of mid-19th century technology. Although the novel focuses mainly on the twists and turns of the writer's journey, it was suggested that ocean-going ships would someday become the basis for the emergence of a new society.
At the end of the twentieth century, the creation of artificial islands in the middle of the ocean became fashionable, due to the law of the sea, which secures the territorial waters (12 nautical miles) and the contiguous zone (24 nautical miles) for the state to which such an island officially belongs. It is clear that the rules do not apply to floating objects that are outside the named zones, and due to this they have a certain advantage: theoretically, the crew of a vessel in free navigation can renounce any citizenship and obedience to "land" laws.
Nowadays, the idea of floating cities is finding supporters among those who believe that life on land is becoming less and less comfortable. French designer Jean-Philippe Zoppini and Belgian architect Vincent Callebo are considered the founders of the concept of the "water world". The first proposed a project of a huge ocean liner for ten thousand passengers, which would have on board everything necessary for an endless round the world travel. The second immediately set out to create a floating city "Lilypad", which will accommodate fifty thousand inhabitants and will use renewable energy resources for life support: currents, wind and sunlight. Liner Zoppini did not find investors, but the Kallebo project continues to develop: the authorities of Brazil, Japan and the United Arab Emirates, in particular, are interested in him.
DRESSING AROUND SILENDA
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Designer Zoppini and architect Kallebo believe that their designs must address two main problems: overpopulation and environmental pollution. Water-based structures should replace stuffy and cramped megacities, and the technologies introduced during their construction will rely on the ocean resources, which still seem to be limitless. However, investors are more interested in the legal status of floating cities. In recent history, there has been a precedent for the creation of an independent state on the "ocean" territory, and today it is being actively studied for use in the future.
In 1966, retired British Major Paddy Roy Bates landed on the Rafs Tower, built in 1942 off the coast of Great Britain to house anti-aircraft guns. Together with his buddy Ronan O'Reilly, he decided to set up an amusement park there, taking advantage of the platform's uncertain legal status. However, the friends soon quarreled, as Bates abandoned the original plan in favor of creating a "pirate" radio station. The conflict ended with the fact that on September 2, 1967, Bates announced the establishment of a sovereign "platform" state called Sealand ("Sea Land") and proclaimed himself its owner - Prince Roy the First.
The case went to court, and the British authorities decided to lay claim to the platform. But it turned out that it was impossible to do this, since Sealand is located outside the territorial waters of Great Britain, and its builders did not bother to legally fix the ownership of the structure. Major Bates and his son Michael repulsed the landing of officials, opening warning fire into the air, and soon the game in the principality of Sealand so captivated the retired major that he developed a constitution for his micro-state, drew a coat of arms, issued a "national" currency and postage stamps.
In August 1978, a coup d'etat took place in Sealand. The prime minister of the microstate, Alexander Achenbach, taking advantage of the prince's absence, at the head of a group of Dutch citizens disembarked on the platform and locked Prince Michael in one of the premises. Bates sought help from a private security agency that organized the assault on Sealand. The rebels were arrested and declared "prisoners of war". Later, Prince Roy released them, but Achenbach languished in "dungeons" until the ambassador of Germany arrived for him, of which he was in fact a citizen. The ambassador's visit was used to confirm the status of Sealand as a recognized state.
On June 23, 2006, a fire engulfed the Rafs Tower platform, which destroyed almost all of Sealand's buildings. Prince Roy decided that he was tired of the game of statehood, and put it up for auction for 750 million euros. So far, no one has acquired an "independent power", but the experience of Major Bates shows: the modern world fully admits the possibility of the existence of such state formations if they are located outside the territorial waters of other countries.
UTOPIA ON WATER
Peter Thiel, one of the founders of the renowned electronic payments company Paypal, is counting on Sealand's precedent. He is currently the main investor in Artisanopolis, a floating city project to be built by The Seasteading Institute (TSI).
The system concept was formulated in 1998 by engineer Wayne Gramlich. He wrote that in the future, settlements on the water will inevitably appear, the main task of which will be the creation of an independent statehood, allowing more rights and freedoms than is customary in the powers with the flag in the UN. Ten years later, on April 15, 2008, Gramlich, along with Patry Friedman, a computer scientist and transhumanist by conviction, established the Sisstading Institute to "create long-term autonomous communities in the ocean to enable the implementation of diverse social, political and legal systems."
The Institute's first project was a large houseboat for one hundred and fifty residents that Gramlich and Friedman planned to launch in San Francisco Bay back in 2014. However, the project did not find investors, so its authors turned to the world for voluntary donations. Advertising of the project attracted many to it, including Peter Thiel, who spent over $ 1.7 million on the Institute's initiatives.
On January 13, 2017, the government of French Polynesia signed an agreement with the Institute to build a floating Artisanopolis, which will be located near the island of Tahiti. Construction will begin in the next two years. The city on the water will be a modular network of rectangular and pentagonal platforms, the position of which can be changed in accordance with the needs of residents. The cost of the city is 170 million dollars, the number of inhabitants is 300 people.
However, the main feature of Artisanopolis is not in its design or architecture, but in the fact that its inhabitants are given complete freedom, and not only in matters of creativity - the creators of the city are going to build a new version of a just society. Skeptics don't believe they can do it. But if it suddenly works out, then the experience of the "water world" will serve as a model for constructing a future, which will become difficult to dismiss.
Anton Pervushin