tlb wrote:kzt wrote:David’s assumption that people will live in an overpriced highly monitored sardine can to save 15-30 minutes of commuting to where they could have 5x as much space for 1/2 the price and without the orwellian surveillance seems questionable.
Why would anyone want to live there in a culture where you could be anywhere on the planet in 30 minutes? It’s like deciding to live in the oil refinery you work at (paying inflated rates for the one bedroom trailer) because you think that’s a great place to raise your kids.
Is it possible that vast areas of the planet either belong to the gentry or the Crown, so the only affordable places for workers are in city towers or space orbitals?
Space orbitals are NOT affordable.
"There were no remote order terminals in Dempsey's Bar. Patrons were served by real, live waiters and waitresses—a factor, given civilian labor costs on the Navy's busiest orbital shipyard, which explained much about Dempsey's price levels. It also helped explain why Dempsey's patrons were willing to pay those prices, but it wasn't the entire story."
...
"This particular Dempsey's lay at the very hub of HMSS Hephaestus's core, yet its designers had gone to great lengths to create a ground-side environment. They couldn't avoid the legally mandated color codings for emergency life support and other disaster-related access and service points, but they'd paid through the nose for permits to build double-high compartments, then used the extra height to accommodate dropped ceilings that hid the snake nests of pipes and power conduits which covered deckheads elsewhere. Sophisticated holo projections outside the casement "windows" displayed ever-changing planetary panoramas, and it was Monday, which meant the bar was "on" Sphinx. The cold, blue skies of autumn soared over the spires of Yawata Crossing, Sphinx's second largest city, and traffic and pedestrian noises drifted in through open windows on artfully cool breezes that smelled of live greenery and sidewalk-cafe cooking. Dempsey's holos never repeated themselves, either. Unlike the constructs less discerning owners might have used, they were broadcast from or recorded at other units of the chain on Manticore, Sphinx, and Gryphon, which gave them specific locations and complete spontaneity. Diners could—and did—sit for hours watching ground-side places they often knew well, and Manticore and Sphinx were close enough to Hephaestus to allow near real-time transmission.
"Background holos, however nice, might have seemed a relatively minor element in producing the near-fanatic loyalty of Dempsey's Hephaestus-based regulars when Manticore itself was barely twenty minutes away by shuttle. But for more than a single person, that twenty-minute trip demanded coordination of duty schedules which was often difficult and frequently worse. A spur of the moment evening ground-side with a lover or a few close friends was a near impossibility . . . except at Dempsey's, where they brought ground-side to you."