The Continuous City that Never Was (1969)

Have you ever imagine a hypothetical single continuous city that connects the United States from sea to shining sea? A 1969 conceptual ...

Have you ever imagine a hypothetical single continuous city that connects the United States from sea to shining sea? A 1969 conceptual design "Continuous City for 1,000,000 human beings" by Alan Boutwell and Mike Mitchell explored the idea with their design for fanciful megastructures for a future megacity that will be home to millions of Americans.

What's wrong with the concept? Well, most major cities nowadays have more than 1,000,000 people and a single continuous city is already flawed from the very beginning. Cities of today are going up vertically.

Visions of gargantuan urbanism became popular in the 1960s with Boutwell and Mitchell focused on a continent-spanning arcology as a feasible project even though designers focused on primarily theoretical spaces. Their design spanned on hundred meter high pillars straight across the continent. The structures' interiors combined all classical functions of urban life and connected by a complex traffic system differentiated by speed, transportation and distances.

Both Boutwell and Mitchell described their project with the self-confidence and urgency that is characteristic of that time: This is our city. We have not sensationalized. All that we have described is feasible today.