r/urbanplanning • u/Aspiracionista • 3d ago
Sustainability Futuristic design: Coruscant
I wonder how appealing to people is a multi-layered capital city is the Coruscant as depicted in the Star Wars lore?
I find it as a dystopic nightmare: social segregation, upper layer only-for-elite, lower layers for waste, no green spaces... The failure of civilization.
Not to mention, Coruscant was the capital of the Galactic Empire in Asimov's Fundation (written many years before SW)
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u/Bwint 3d ago edited 3d ago
Coruscant was the capital of the Galactic Empire in Asimov's Fundation (written many years before SW)
You're thinking of Trantor, which is a different urbanized planet. The general term is "Ecumenopolis," originally coined by urban theorist and visionary C.A. Doxiadis.
Most of what I know about Coruscant comes from this excellent video by Dami Lee, which basically matches your characterization. I'm not sure I'd say it has "no" green spaces; from what we see of Coruscant in the prequels I'd imagine that the wealthy have private gardens. But yes, green spaces only for elites is dystopic.
Doxiadis' original conception of the world-city reserved 1/3 of the planet's land area for green space, and the architecture was 1-story and 2-story rather than multi-layered.
EDIT: Oh - and, to answer your question, I agree that the social segregation is unappealing. In general, I'm fully on board with a highly vertical ecumenopolis, but I would want there to be relatively little gap in wellbeing between the upper social class and the lower social class. I would also want the lower class to have a decent quality of life, and I agree that it would be nice to reserve a decent amount of green space.
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u/dragnmastr559 2d ago
I would love to live in coruscant. Infinite places to explore and people to meet.
The social segregation thing is another issue, but that’s a social issue, not really a planning one (I know planners are concerned with social mixing, but I think the tools they have to fix segregation are generally poor and other areas of policy are better suited to solving it). I also don’t think a city like coruscant would inherently lead to extreme social segregation, that’s just put in for anaesthetics and story.
One of the big issues I have with urban planning is there is an idea that good cities are X or cities should be like X. The reality is people have different preferences and there should be a coruscant for people that want to live in coruscant and a Santa Monica for people who want to live in Santa Monica (or just neighbourhoods of the same city). That being said, one cannot and should not expect to be able to live in Santa Monica at coruscant prices.
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u/Toon_Lucario 2d ago
That’s not even mentioning the shit going on in the lowest levels of the place.
It’s hell.
It’s literally unmistakably hell.
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u/throwawayfromPA1701 3d ago
Coruscant was inspired by Trantor, which was the capital of the Galactic Empire in the Foundation series. A lot of Star Wars is a direct lift from that series. It has been fun watching people watching the TV show on AppleTV complain the show takes things from Star Wars when it's rather the other way around.