Clear your mind for a second. Set aside the infrastructure you live in - All the cars and trucks, all the roads, the congested cities and suburban sprawl, planes and airports, and cargo ships and invasive species, waiting in traffic, running out of gas, accidents, car insurance, and all the other things, the danger, inefficiency, polution, and inconvenience that goes along with it.

Now imagine yourself in a world much like the world the first settlers found. This isnt the past, it is the future. All transportation is based around a super efficient roller-coaster-like railway that travels ~250 miles an hour and is electric-driven. For efficiency and convenience, most people live in large towers cities that soar half a kilometer into the sky looking out over a reforested landscape. These towers are enormous, housing ~20000 people and providing all the services and comforts of a typical city. You, like everyone in the city, live in a comfortable apartment high above the landscape with a view looking out for miles and miles in the distance. Imagine you want to take the weekend to visit a friend. Before you leave your city you need to make a few stops for some clothes, a few bottles of wine, and a new movie. In this world, you live on the 125th floor. You leave your appartment and go to the elevator, this one will take you down to the 100th floor where you will then take a faster elevator all the way to the bottom, but before you go to the 100th floor you go to the 120th floor and do some shopping at some of the local shops and stores. Once completed, you drop off some mail with a mail collection robot and get back on the elevator. The inner part of the city is bustling with activity - people jogging through the broad and spaceous corridors, kids playing with one another at the various indoor playgrounds, people going to work, automated delivery robots dropping off packages and groceries and carrying away the trash.

Ultimately you get to the bottom level and you summon a pod when you reach the transporation junction, moments later the single occupant pod arrives and your board it. You tell it where you want to go and soon you are underway, quickly accelerating to 250 miles per hour on your way to your friends place. As you leave the city tower on the track you notice several hikers departing on a day hike to venture into the forest. Many other people are enjoying the shaded encircling parkway of the city playing in and among the trees, picknicking, and sun-bathing. As you travel, suspended several meters over the blurr of trees and grass, you decide to read and have a glass of wine - no worries about accidents or traffic because it's all automated - oh, and drinking while "driving" is totally fine here :). You get a little drowsy after reading for a few hours and decide to take a nap... 4 hours later you wake up as you are about to arrive, calmly alerted of your arrival by a soft chime in the cabin. You have just traveled ~1500 miles in 6 hours so you need to change your wrist watch - but all other electronic devices have changed automatically as you passed through the various time zones.

You then proceed to your friends appartment or meet them in one of their tower's hundreds of resteraunts and enjoy the weekend in much the same fashion you normally would

Now imagine how much more difficult it would have been to do all of this in our contemporary world.

This world is possible with contemporary technology - historical precedent and the status quo prevent us from living in this plausible kind of utopia

In the US in any given year 37000 lives are lost and more than ~100,000 others become injured and disabled from car accidents - This doesnt need to happen

There is heavy dependence on foreign oil, national security is risked, and conflict abroad is inevitable because of this dependence - This doesnt need to be so.

Road rage, car insurance, vehicle repairs, perpetual maintenance and high costs of roads create vast frustration for countless people every day - This doesnt need to be so.

Inclement weather and flooding threatens countless homes, inhibits travel, and destroys billions of dollars of infrastructure every year - This doesnt need to be so.

Invasive species, terrorist threats and attacks like 9/11 are perpetual risks with contemporary shipping and intercontinental transit - This doesnt need to be so.

There are a vast many reason why a more advanced infrastructure would be better. We would need to give up some of our ways of living but I dont think we would miss very much once we get accustomed to the new style and our children would live in a truely amazing world that is much more sustainable, environmentally friendly and easy to live in

- who wants it and who doesnt - vote.

or ask me more about the idea first - there is only so much one can express about the idea in such a short space.