I want to start with a number of slides about moving cities.

“Meanwhile the city slid over us soundlessly, propelled by the expansion of the tracks themselves. … as the cylinders expand, the city is pushed towards the cooler, thinner railing to the west; and so the city is propelled by the sun, while never being exposed to it.”

This is from Kim Stanley Robinson’s short story Mercurial, which isn’t really about the city at all although it plays a large part. It’s a detective story about an art collector on Mercury. With this city, resistance to the motive force is used to generate large amounts of electricity. The city slides round the entire planet, slowly, again and again. They sell the electricity to other planets.

In the background, there’s one of the Archigram Walking Cities by Ron Herron.

Matt Webb, S&W, posted 2006-04-06 (talk on 2006-02-23)