# Mobile cities **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 18, 2018, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cities/826328 "2018-12-18T17:08:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cities/826328/1 "2018-12-18T17:08:48Z")
Inspired by criticism late in [this](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=845842) thread, what are some examples of mobile (ground based) cities in fiction? the first that comes to mind for me is in[\* 2312 \*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2312_(novel))by KSR, which includes a city on Mercury, constantly moving on rails to stay at the terminator. I was aware of a similar city in a[Christopher Priest novel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_World) that I haven’t read and [Lando Calrissian’s Nomad City](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Nomad_City). Any more notible ones that I [and TV Tropes](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BaseOnWheels) am missing? ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cities/826328/2 "2018-12-18T17:12:51Z")
_[Snowpiercer](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1706620/)_ is set on a train that’s basically a moving city. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cities/826328/3 "2018-12-18T17:20:25Z")
The city Zodanga in John Carter (film. I don’t know if it was mobile in the book) ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cities/826328/4 "2018-12-18T17:30:08Z")
Maybe the mobile factory in The Gone-Away World by Harkaway? You specify ground-based, so I guess James Blish’s Cities in Flight don’t count. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cities/826328/5 "2018-12-18T17:41:51Z")
The Black Fortress in _Krull._ ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cities/826328/6 "2018-12-18T17:49:15Z")
How about the road towns in [The Roads Must Roll?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Roads_Must_Roll) > [@](#): > > Heinlein’s vision of a Road, always capitalized, was a fully enclosed slidewalk or multi-speed conveyor belt whose cargo was people and freight, stretching from city to city, and operating at maximum speeds of 100 miles per hour. The speed difference between any two adjacent belts was 5 miles per hour, small enough to let people step from one to another with care. Partitions along the length of every fourth belt prevented the buildup of high winds. Long distance travelers had to step all the way to the innermost, fastest belt. > > The Road City was a consequence of this, clearly noted in the story, where people whose livelihood depended on the Road began to live in new communities built along its length. Factories were located along the Road because of easy transport for their goods and materials. Entire businesses established themselves on the conveyor strips to cater to travelers while they moved from city to city, and the people who worked in those business lived within easy reach of the Road itself, living in “the country” but working in “the city”. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cities/826328/7 "2018-12-18T19:17:50Z")
> [@Finagle](#): > > You specify ground-based, so I guess James Blish’s Cities in Flight don’t count. And, thus, the [city of Boston, placed in a spaceship to escape the explosion of Earth](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51NAD62612L.jpg), doesn’t count, either. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2018, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cities/826328/8 "2018-12-18T20:12:10Z")
James Blish’s _Cities in Flight_ has big earth cities taking off into space. Zodanga isn’t a moving city in Burroughs’s John Carter novels, but they made it one in the film, supposedly inspired by the city being described as in two different locations in the books. In _the Roads must Roll_ the major cities are fixed in place, but you could argue that the establishments on those moving roads constitute moving cities of their own. Possibly the same could be read for the roadways in Asimov’s _Caves of Steel_. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2018, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cities/826328/9 "2018-12-27T01:03:19Z")
While kind of a cool concept, the idea of a mobile city is absurd. It is typically far more efficient to use lots of smaller vehicles to bring resources to the city, rather than put a city on massive tracks and have it go to the resources. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2018, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cities/826328/10 "2018-12-27T01:24:26Z")
Atlantis in _Stargate: Atlantis_ is a city which can float in the water or fly in space; I don’t know if it was possible for it to settle on land. Not sure if that counts, but the link in the OP includes Jim Rockford’s mobile home, so maybe TV Tropes is setting the bar a little low on this one. Maybe Kandor, the shrunken-down capital city of Krypton? It doesn’t move on its own, but it’s small enough to be carried around. Mostly it just sits in a glass jar. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2018, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cities/826328/11 "2018-12-27T03:13:16Z")
In the novel based on the classic Infocom text adventure game, there’s a whole planet of mobile mecha cities. Varieties include- dog, duck, porcupine, and one shaped like an egg. ---
**Author:** ![JB99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/439d5e/32.png) [@JB99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JB99)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2018, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cities/826328/12 "2018-12-27T03:45:11Z")
How has nobody mentioned Swift’s Laputa? Also, has anyone mentioned the floating city in Bioshock? ---
**Author:** ![snoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@snoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snoe)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2018, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cities/826328/13 "2018-12-27T03:53:34Z")
> [@JB99](#): > > How has nobody mentioned Swift’s Laputa? > > Also, has anyone mentioned the floating city in Bioshock? OP said “ground-based.” ☹ I’ll throw in another non-example: Armada, the floating pirate-city in China Mieville’s novel _The Scar_. > [@](#): > > I’ve no interest in this city. I do not want to live in a curio, Johannes. This is a sideshow! This is something to scare the children! ‘The Floating Pirate City’! I don’t want it! I don’t want to live in this great bobbing parasite, like some fucking pondskater sucking the victims dry. This isn’t a city, Johannes; it’s a parochial little village less than a mile wide, and I do not want it. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2018, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cities/826328/14 "2018-12-27T07:44:29Z")
That one Transformer that was basically a giant city and had other transformers living in him in his disguised state. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2018, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cities/826328/15 "2018-12-27T16:22:47Z")
“Doctor Who” featured a [mobile planet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirate_Planet). ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2018, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mobile-cities/826328/16 "2018-12-30T19:09:25Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > …the first that comes to mind for me is in[\* 2312 \*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2312_(novel))by KSR, which includes a city on Mercury, constantly moving on rails to stay at the terminator… Charles Stross’s sf novel _Saturn’s Children_, about Asimovian robots colonizing the Solar System after the mysterious mass extinction of humanity, has the same thing, IIRC.