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#1 2003-11-06 21:51:52
- Scott G. Beach
- Banned
- Registered: 2002-07-08
- Posts: 288
Re: An Example of Settlement Governance - The City Council of the City of Euthenia
A site plan for a prototype Martian settlement has been posted at http://www.geocities.com/scott956282743/euthenia.htm
That prototype settlement, named The City of Euthenia, is composed of 100 underground neighborhood domes, five municipal domes, and a grid of underground streets. The city is designed to contain a population of about 10,000 people. What kind of government might that city have?
The City of Euthenia might have a City Council composed of one Representative from each of the 100 neighborhoods. The Council might meet four times each year and annually elect a Mayor, Secretary, Treasurer, Auditor, Fire Chief, Police Chief, and other officers.
The City Council might also elect ten Supervisors. The Board of Supervisors might meet 24 times each year and monitor how the Mayor and other city officers are performing their duties. The Board might be empowered, by a majority vote, to suspend any officer for any reason. The Board might also be empowered, by a two-thirds vote, to remove any officer for dereliction of duty. After a suspension or removal, the Board might appoint a temporary successor, who would serve until the next meeting of the City Council. The Council could then review and either ratify or reverse the decision to suspend or remove the officer. Or the Council might not review the matter, thereby allowing the temporary successor to remain in office and allowing the whole ?unpleasant? matter to just fade away quietly.
Would this governance structure provide a system of checks and balances that promotes good government?
"Analysis, whether economic or other, never yields more that a statement about the tendencies present in an observable pattern." Joseph A. Schumpeter; Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, 1942
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#2 2003-11-07 22:29:21
- Cobra Commander
- Member
- From: The outskirts of Detroit.
- Registered: 2002-04-09
- Posts: 3,039
Re: An Example of Settlement Governance - The City Council of the City of Euthenia
I could have swore I posted a reply to this earlier today... Maybe the demons got it.
The government structure you describe seems like it would work about as well as what is common in local government around the US, functional but not exceptional. The system is less important than the people within it.
I looked over the city layout. It strikes me as too logical. Perhaps something less uniform and orderly would be better, defined more by the landscape and the whims of the colonists than by functional geometric arrangements. It seems like it would be too artificial, like living inside a giant grey office building.
Which reminds me, in the interest of morale, I propose that we NEVER introduce those damn flourescent lights to Mars! That sickly green glow and the endless flickering is one headache the Martians won't need 
Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
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#3 2003-11-07 23:32:33
Re: An Example of Settlement Governance - The City Council of the City of Euthenia
Very nice, Scott! And 100 meter domes for 100 people is about right. That's 78 square meters per person. A book I have somewhere about building orbiting colonies goes through an elaborate calculation and comes up with 100 square meters per person for agriculture and housing space. If you put your housing under the agriculture, the domes would be big enough for both.
The only change I'd make is to run the streets under the domes and move the domes closer together. If they are in a hexagonal arrangement they pack together more closely. Alternately, keep the current arrangement but come up with a use for the interdomal areas.
-- RobS
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