I always loved these schemes and it took me a while to understand why they are inherently expensive and so are not likely to appear soon.

The reason is that a man-made structure on the water is subject to continuous strain and thus continual and so needs continual repair. The larger the structure, the more that this becomes a problem. Bridge and ships fall apart over time and still require continuous maintenance while they're in their lifetime.

It's appealing but like the underwater city, it would be enormously impractical.

Well, the Earth is over 70 percent water. It seems that expanding our habitable space to exist on a marine environment is more feasible than, say, building a colony in outer space.

Grumpy travelers' concerns aside, it could be a really neat concept akin to a destination in and on its own. Like an EPCOT center, but factoring in the economic, environmental and social issues of building a floating city. An engineer's dream . . ..

No mention of expenses for passengers. Given transportation to/from the coast, I'd guess a plane ticket in/out of here would be prohibitively expensive in both time and money.

And building a 4 story metropolis underneath doesn't make sense unless there is a reason to visit. Hotels, conference centers and shopping centers, wouldn't be enough, at least for me.

And if San Diego doesn't keep current on their fees the airport could go somewhere else, like Shanghai.

... vis-a-vis wiser ways of spending transportation money, considering the most good for the greatest number and reducing carbon impact?

Time to take more holistic views of how these systems inter-relate, rather than focusing on narrow visions.

They should talk to google for investment (by letting google house servers there - ocean is a great place for renewable energy and water cooling).

Hmm, this make anyone else thing of Tom Swift?

after we have ruined the ground we set our feet on, it is time to start with the ocean. wtf. leave the ocean alone as is.

Why not build the airport 40 miles inland, in the desert? There's no shortage of desert land in California. Wouldn't that make so much more sense (by orders of magnitude) than build a floating airport? Just wondering...

"In the midst of this pickle, along comes a fellow named Adam Englund. He’s a local lawyer..."

I wouldn't trust 20 billion of the taxpayer's money to a lawyer's vision. Give half of that to the Dyson vacuum cleaner guy. He'll come up with a design that works.

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