Okay then, back to the park problem of vertically developed cities and urban environments.

Having trees which line roadways has been a typical solution to this problem, but with the levels of the problem increasing now and into the future, will this continue to be a viable solution. If we fast forward 50 years, we may see cities like New York and London with wide areas of the cities with buildings which are constructed to heights seen only very rarely today. These buildings will obviously obstruct a large portion of the sunlight from reaching the pathways on the ground level. There are two solutions to this problem: we could construct building which reflect light downward to the ground, or we could use energy to artificially provide much needed sunlight. Even when you do this, I think most people would agree that only having trees on roads would not be enough for an entire city. People have considered the possibility of perhaps dedicating entire floors of skyscrapers into parks, so that its residents can enjoy it.

With the current levels of population growth, many very intelligent people have dedicated their lives towards considering how we would go about constructing a sustainable city/urban environment. One important conclusion they’ve made is that the current way the western world goes about expanding cities outward and horizontally is not sustainable in the long run. This of course mean that the only sustainable way of continuing to grow our cities is if we grow them upward or downward, i.e vertically. From this, they’ve considered the ways they would go about growing a city vertically, and yet still maintaining all of the things which our modern society needs in order to function at the optimum level. If we are limited to expanding our cities and urban environments upward, what do we do about parks and other greenery? In order for our people to function properly, we can’t just have a concrete jungle, we need to have access to fresh air and wildlife. This creates an interesting dilemma for our city planners of the future to solve.