Buildings would still be built close together in order to share infrastructure (power, clean water, sewer, etc). Living outside of the city would certainly be more convenient with a portal system, but economies of scale mean it would still be far more expensive than living in the city.
If transportation isn’t a problem then transporting water/sewer/energy over long distances would presumably also be cheap, so buildings could share infrastructure without being colocated, right?
True. I guess it depends on exactly how cheap/ubiquitous/miniaturized this portal technology is; I was imagining fridge-sized one-per-home, not pipe-sized dozens-per-home. It also matters what it’s capable of transporting (water and sewage are just physical matter, but electricity is a different thing entirely).
Buildings would still be built close together in order to share infrastructure (power, clean water, sewer, etc). Living outside of the city would certainly be more convenient with a portal system, but economies of scale mean it would still be far more expensive than living in the city.
If transportation isn’t a problem then transporting water/sewer/energy over long distances would presumably also be cheap, so buildings could share infrastructure without being colocated, right?
True. I guess it depends on exactly how cheap/ubiquitous/miniaturized this portal technology is; I was imagining fridge-sized one-per-home, not pipe-sized dozens-per-home. It also matters what it’s capable of transporting (water and sewage are just physical matter, but electricity is a different thing entirely).
Even in remote locations in the US power/clean water/sewer aren’t expensive enough to get people to want to leave those locations.
The lower cost of lands makes up for it.