You step out into the languid summer evening. The warm glow of the circular road that runs through the POD (Private Organized Dwellings) creates a pleasing atmosphere, unlike old sodium vapor lights you remember from childhood. Most of the houses have very little exterior lighting so the kids can use the POD’s observatory under clear night skies. The two robotic watchdogs trot past on their regular rounds.
You carry the waste bin over to the REGEN (Recycling and Generation Exchange Node) in the central plaza, which is an unassuming building surrounded by trees, making it almost invisible. It houses the POD’s 3-D printing facility and the bio-waste recycling device that turns food scraps into feed pellets for the livestock. A drone flies overhead with a whizzing sound, dropping a delivery at the central pick-up point.
Each house in the POD sits on one-and-a-half acres of land. There are 10 family plots arranged in a circle, with a single gated entry. There are 100 PODs, called an ECOPLEX (Ecological Community Organized Pods Living and EXchange), covering about a square mile, with a large stocked lake in the center and the open land used for livestock and recreation areas. In the middle of the lake, each ECOPLEX has a Tesla Tower generating electricity from natural potential,wirelessly distributed across the entire complex.
Each family has their own garden and a number of folks specialize in certain crops, with extra fruits and vegetables traded at the shared co-op. The ECOPLEX is self-sufficient, but there’s still a robust trade in specialized products, most of which are ordered on the net and delivered by drone.
It’s very quiet tonight and the light breeze is scented with gardenias from the neighbor’s POD. Off in the distance, you can hear the tinkling of bells on the sheep and cows, but otherwise it’s another quiet evening. Usually this time of night, most families are gathered around the holo-stage, playing games or watching channels on the net, and the more ambitious ones creating content to be distributed on the net. The really hot channels can earn thousands of crypts per month creating content.
You reach the REGEN and dump the trash into the supply chute for the 3-D printer, and the food scraps in the feed producer. You walk around to the other side to see if your prototype subsea habitat has finished printing, but alas you will have to fetch it in the morning.
As you stroll casually back to the house, some kids run by chattering excitedly about photographing Comet Halley, and you reflexively look up at the glorious starscape, trying to pick out the comet against the twinkling backdrop. Memories of growing up in the old cities come flooding back — the noise, congestion, crime, poverty, and no stars at night. You take a couple of deep breaths, trying to remember what the cities smelled like, but your sinuses are only full of the neighbor’s gardenias.
The cities were abandoned back in the 2050s, when the POD design was almost universally adopted, not by force, but because humans were just sick of high-density living. The technology had evolved to make even the most remote PODs feel linked to the wider culture. Most of the old cities were gone now, though a few of the really iconic ones were converted to living museums. Places like Paris had become enclaves for artists, while others like New York were now home to Retros — folks (mostly aging Zoomers) who maintained the old ways as an historical curiosity.
No one commuted to “jobs” any more. Many folks designed things and uploaded the files to the net, usually as part of a Distributed Autonomous Organization (DAO) that specialized in various industries. If you liked something, you paid a small fee to the designer and sent the file to the 3-D printer at your REGEN. When you wore out or outgrew the item, you simply dumped it back in the REGEN and the materials were cycled for new creations. Some people even made hobby out of never wearing the same clothes twice.
The PODs had become self-contained villages. Some had even evolved into multi-generational family units, taking over entire PODs for children, grandchildren and beyond. A few had become quite famous for their unique designs and products, or as tourist destinations to see unique environmental art. The neighbor has a large greenhouse and grows unique varieties of berries she has created over years of careful inter-breeding.
Another group of kids runs by on their way to the shooting range for a rousing game of Nick-the-Drone. This particular group was into everything hunting and fishing. They competed at the regional shooting tournaments, and often rode horses down to the lake for fishing contests.
You arrive back at the front door and step into the vestibule. Your spouse has chosen lilac — one of your favorites — for the house scent tonight. You hand the empty bin off to the housebot and quickly pop into the office to see that everything is humming along, then enter the main family area. It’s a large circular room with the holo-stage in the center. The design is based on ancient kivas found in the southwest. All the private rooms form a ring around it, with an open space to the left for the kitchen and dining area.
The kids are exploring the ruins on the Moon by remote drone. You stop for a moment, never quite getting used to the idea the humans have been a multi-planet species for thousands of years. Your spouse is splayed out on the ring of sofas, using the virtual keyboard and monitor to type a new article on ultrasonic pest control. The dogs and cats are scattered about, seemingly oblivious to the excited chattering at the holo-stage, though a couple are watching the with one eye open, in case a moment to play arises.
“Alright, everyone, bed time,” you announce, as your spouse vanishes the virtual work station.
Your command is met with the usual aws and darns, but you remind them that tomorrow we are leaving for the Grand Canyon and Meteor Crater, which is met with cheers. The family trips were a blast, using the mag-lev RVs that everyone had these days. They used a vast electro-magnetic network built into the roads, which supplied both power and allowed every vehicle to communicate with every other one for self-driving and navigation functions. If you wanted to go off-road, the RV had a propane-powered 6-wheeled all-terrain vehicle in the on-board garage area, and a large propane tank underneath that supplied the ATV, stove and heating. Propane was cheap, plentiful and available everywhere, like camping gas used to be in the old days.
As the family makes their ways to their rooms, you look around the house to check that everything is in order.
“House sleep,” you say, and all the lights dim to 10%, and you retire to the bedroom, hoping for a good night’s sleep. Your mind was swimming in vacation check-lists, but the SonicSoother would put you into alpha-wave sleep in no time.
Hopefully, the next vacation would be in the family’s new sub-sea habitat you’ve been working on for months.
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I always enjoy the thoughtful comments your posts engender.
Hmmm...would I like to live in this place or not????🤔🤔
Airports don't have runway lighting like city streets because they would obstruct the vision of pilots using the runway. Streets driven by vehicles with bright headlights don't need external lighting. If sidewalks are lit, their light needn't light adjacent streets.