Cities are all pretty much the same -- just sprawling environments spiraling outward from a central hub with no particular plan or theme to speak of. But if any of these designers had had his way, every city would be a bizarre, science fiction-esque place full of strange sights, wondrous inventions and occasionally, people-movers slick with vomit.

6 Triton City: If It's Good Enough for an Aquaman Villain, It's Good Enough for You!

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In the 1960's, Buckminster Fuller (the geodesic dome guy) was commissioned by Matsutaro Shoriki, a wealthy Japanese patron, to design a city in Japan. This architectural marvel was to be a tetrahedron that measured two miles on each side, capable of housing one million residents, and would be located in Tokyo Bay. Not along Tokyo Bay, but in Tokyo Bay. Floating.



It's about time that shiftless ocean pulled its weight.

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The tetrahedron shape provided many benefits as well, like maximizing the availability of outside living area, and protecting residents from potentially fatal falls off of the tall buildings (guard rails were not to be invented until 1992, by Sir Preston Guardrail, of the Oxford Guardrails). Unfortunately, Shoriki died in 1966, which brought an end to the plans for the gargantuan artificial floating pyramid. Until the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development caught wind of the idea. So Fuller went to work on a scaled-down model for the US, called Triton City.

Triton anticipated a lower maximum population of just over 100,000 people, and was also to be the first fully organic city, complete with a desalination system to re-circulate ocean water. Schematics for Triton were sent to the United States Navy's Bureau of Ships, to check it for "water-worthiness," stability and organic capabilities, then off to the Bureau of Yards and Docks to see whether or not they could even build this thing, specifically at the cost they had projected. Both Bureaus gave the thumbs up, and the Navy's cost estimate came within 10% of Buckminster's. And that's probably the craziest part of Triton: At every stage, it was going to work.