Urbanates

The term Urbanate originates with Technocracy Incorporated as a proposal for a new living environment, to replace traditional cities in a possible future technate.

Overview
An Urbanate is an assembly of buildings, or perhaps one large building, in which people would live and work. These places would have all the facilities needed for a community, including schools, hospitals, distribution centres (shops), waste management and recycling, sports centres, and public areas (parks and gardens), and would also have easy access to the surrounding country-side. The exact design of an Urbanate has not been specified as this would be far better done by the engineers and architects of the technate, if and when they come to build one.

Design and proposed benefits
Technocrats propose that Urbanate buildings be as energy efficient as possible, and be designed with safety in mind, with every building material being completely fireproof and resistant to almost all natural disasters. It is envisioned that Urbanates will be manufactured rather than constructed in the traditional sense. Standardised, prefabricated components will be produced in automated factories and transported to the desired location to be assembled into whatever design is required with a minimum of human labour used.

Urbanates are to be designed to give each citizen the highest standard of living possible within a sustainable resource base. Urbanates in design, could be something akin to resorts, with all sorts of leisure facilities included. In other words, these structures would be built with a view to practicality and non commercial (Price system) concerns, and protection of resources.

Getting around in an Urbanate would be inherently easy and efficient, with every kind of major facility placed within walking distance or an easy commute of a housing complex.

Urbanates would be connected via a continent-wide transportation network envisioned by the Technate design (Technocracy Study Course), which would involve a High-speed rail network (possible Maglev train) linking every Urbanate, the Continental Hydrology (a massive Canal network), and air transport. These systems would also be connected to the technate’s industrial sites, consisting of automated factories, for easy transport of goods to consumers and to all recreational and vacation areas of the continent.

Technocrats suppose there will be great environmental benefits to recycling some current cities and adopting Urbanates. Urbanates will take up much less physical space than cities and will not have polluting cars or industries. Roads and highways, major ecological hazards with their thousands of kilometres of concrete and tarmac cutting through natural landscapes, will be absent in this plan, and nature will be able to reclaim vast tracts of land.

Eco-Units and Urbantes
The term "Eco-unit" refers to a sustainable community in which the community handles all food, energy and waste management needed for the community. The Swedish systems ecologist Folke Gunther developed the concept was developed. This has then become a proposed foundation for an urbanate where a number of eco-units would link together to form an urbanate.