Like the article mentions, the problem is the real estate cost. So I really suggest everyone to take look at The Venus Project http://www.thevenusproject.com/ which promotes similar technologies, but the key is to make them freely available to the whole society.

So wrong in so many ways. So unworthy of Gizmag, which used to be a science and technology blog, not Mother Jones.

The mere mention of \'Ocean Levels rising\' is not only circa-2006 nonsense, but is scientifically ignorant of the fact that continent-covering ocean level rise of this level has never occurred on the planet, and was never predicted even by the most partisan climate alarmists. It\'s fun to manufacture a crisis like this to look cool to chicks. But sadly, polar ice levels, and ocean levels are the same today as they were 20 years ago. Check the NOAA raw observations instead of \'computer models\'.

The other liberal dream - Social Engineering in the form of cramming us all into somebody\'s beautifully-designed sardine can - looks cool, but humans don\'t work this way. We have our own individual needs and expressions, and won\'t conform to an Eco-Loon\'s idea of a politically correct \'habitat\' - sorry, prison.

Instead, try creating tools that help us individually attain our own goals and accomplishments, including living spaces we can build to our own taste. That may be a little too free-market for eco-lefties to handle, but nature does prevail eventually.

Why not just build them on the land, on stilts, and then wait for the sea level to rise, or not. Come to think of it, just build all new buildings on stilts. You could use the space at ground level for car parking. Too easy?

@Todd
This idea that individuals should be able to use up earth\'s resources without giving any thought as to the impact this could have on everyone else who lives here will eventually destroy ALL people on this planet. You projected all sorts of nonsense fear mongering into your post and it\'s all bunk. If we continue the way we are with this planet of \"individual\" consumers who all set about destroying the planet that everyone lives on, none of us whether it be individual or collective will survive. The idea that we could continue this endless over-production on a finite planet is itself \"utopian\".

LOL!
Must be a slow day for science/tech, this Lilypad floating city concept has been \'floating\' around since at least 2007. Same renderings from then too.

Looks great, but what if someone pulls the plug on the bottom and it starts to sink.....what happens teh????? Maybe we can make these at a rent contolled levels so social security, social services ad welfare can pay for them...

Facebook User... sorry, it\'s not 1972 any longer.

The world is in great shape and will survive for another 4 billion years. Your Hemp messenger bag won\'t really matter to anyone but your own sense of sanctimony.

@Todd
Wow man, must be nice for you to be omniscient. So easy to see everything when you\'re so high up the food chain.
Go ahead. Make a snide comment. You\'re very good at those. I even checked my spelling so you can focus.

Looks like an updated but less practical version of Sea City, introduced some 40 years ago.
http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~bat/sea-city.html

Daniel it takes a vastly higher level of omniscience to predict that suddenly, after billions of years, the last tiny 200 years of industrialization will force the oceans to rise to the level you would get moving earth\'s orbit a few percent closer to the sun.

Never mind that there is not even enough land- and glacier-based ice to make but a few inches\' difference even if you melted all of it. And the ocean ice...well...floats already. By the way, that means that even if it melted, the ocean levels would stay the same.

There are real scientific problems that need solving, and we don\'t have to make up new ones.