What are we here for?

Ultimately
We are here to build a vertical city. The building that 100 years from now people point to and say "That changed everything."

Some qualities:
 * Sustainable, self-sustaining (living, working, food production, energy generation, governance, etc)
 * High quality of life for everyone
 * Zero waste
 * to build an urban community that is the paragon of efficiency, livability and happiness
 * provides an example of how traditional living models can be integrated into highly industrial, urban context
 * a living creation, just like a city, never finished, always evolving, being upgraded, etc
 * Density is a good thing
 * Hyper-local can be big
 * Self-governable

Questions that will need answers

Short-term

 * What does growth look like, for us?
 * Rather than thinking about pointing towards 100 people for an all-day event in a month or two, we're looking at perhaps a half-day with 10-20 people pretty soon that helps us jump the effort forward, where we'll eventually want another half-day and another half-day and a full-day, etc, when the time is right for each, growing organically.

We are a group of individuals that are concerned about the future of humanity and the effect we have upon the planet.

We each have individual reason for being here: "I'm here because I think this is an interesting conversation and one that we need to have to insure that humanity has a bright future. I also enjoy the networking opportunities and I use the discussions as fodder for other projects including blogging for Vertical City Blog -Lennon Richardson

"I'm a social studies/art teacher in a public school. Culture, social organization and livability issues are always at the forefront of my interest, and this topic provides an excellent platform for posing problems and generating discussion about topics that will critically impact my students in the future, whether the vertical village ever gets built or not." -Jon Gottshall

“Having lived in cities in both China and the U.S., regardless how different they are, I realized that ‘Cities’ provide the most potential to all types of communities. I would like to see how far we can go and what we can give back to regular cities if vertical cities become real.” - Summer Fang

"I'm here because "The City" is our future. As humanity continues to expand, we need to be more efficient if we are to survive, and the City is where those efficiencies are born. Vertical Space brings up all of these issues. - Ted Sarvata