Well, to deal with each of Raptori's points:
Food:
Food is only going to be a problem if your underground dwellers are completely cut off from the surface. The traditional dwarven mining stereotype assumes that the wealth produced from within the earth (in the form of metals and jewels) is more than enough to buy all the food necessary. I think that this is the most probable scenario (the beginning of the first Hobbit film displays this possibility very effectively).
I do think that there is room for some imaginative problem solving, here, though. My knowledge of biology is poor to terrible, but I'm sure there are types of algae or simple organisms that can exist underground. I've heard that life on Earth may have originated deep in the oceans, around volcanic wells. If this is true, sunlight is not needed, but minerals/nutrients (and warmth?) are important. These could be found underground. I am now imagining the residents of this city tending large 'fields' full of a disgusting white soupy substance.
Water:
I think Raptori covered this one pretty well. If you refer to the image I linked to before, you'll see that the Cappadocians dug wells into the water table.
Oxygen:
once again, I agree with Raptori's assessment. Ventilation will be necessary, and ants and termites can provide decent models for that ventilation. Generally, I would recommend a city with a tree-like shape: large thoroughfares with smaller ones coming off them, and then smaller ones and so forth. That way foul air can be flushed out easily enough. Another important thing would be some kind of cross-breeze effect (if the city is inside a hill or mountain, it could have an opening on the windward side, and another on the lee side), which would provide the operation of removing the bad air, while bringing fresh air inside. If the city is located underneath, say, a desert or plain, air could be a problem.
Living space:
I disagree with Raptori that space would be at a premium. Underground, you have far more space than above ground, especially when you factor in the ability to develop vertically as well as horizontally. I foresee two issues when expanding this city: I) encountering hard rock that is too difficult to dig through, and II) risking an area collapsing. The first could thwart any preconceived plans that you develop, and would probably result in a city that evolves with solid patches where the diggers could go no further.
The second would not be too difficult to deal with either, at least partially: you would most likely be naturally inclined to leave walls more solid than necessary as part of the process of excavation. Adding plenty of supporting structures (timber--traded, obviously--or metal being the most useful). Collapses can still take place, but they might be regarded as a worthwhile hazard. Consider, for example: making houses (and even streets) out of wood in medieval Novgorod (which, being such a cold climate, would also necessitate plenty of fires for warmth). In Australia each year, bushfires and floods wreak havoc, but we still rebuild. I think this hypothetical underground city would be the same: if the advantage of living underground is big enough (eg vast seams of gold, protection from ravaging hordes or plagues), people will risk partial cave collapse.
Temperature:
I think I remember hearing that, in architectural history terms, living underground makes a lot more sense from the point of view of temperature. In cold climates, the insulation would keep the town warm (relative to the surface temperature), and in hot climates it would keep the temperature low. All year round, as MCC says, it would keep the temp stable.
Some other thoughts:
I don't think houses would necessarily be open-plan. It would help with the ventilation, but would weaken the supports holding up the roof. Here is what I think would be sensible architectural features for this city:
-front doors might be nothing more than metal bars in a door frame (provides security, without blocking the fresh air). The front room in historic cities often contained only a shop, workshop or lobby anyway, and so privacy isn't going to be an issue (and curtains can be used to provide privacy through those doors). Sound also won't be a problem due to the thickness of walls.
-as much as possible, ventilation will be built into the design: internal doorways will be very large, and perhaps have no doors or gates; rooms will try to have direct access to the thoroughfares.
Raptori's point about moving objects up stairs is easily dealt with. It wouldn't be too difficult to excavate vertical shafts and have pulleys to move heavy goods (and possibly people). The labour of moving all of this earth would be minimised by the incremental way it is done (a lot of labour goes into building a house, but I will hazard a guess that it is probably about the same amount of labour needed to dig a house).
Planning: sorry to harp on about this, but, as a qualified urban planner (and an unqualified urban historian) I do not think that this city would need planning. It is, as I said before, determined by the nature of government. If the city has a totalitarian leader, he/she might want a specific design, but if this city has grown out of a peoples' necessity, and emerged over decades or centuries, it would grow spontaneously. And the result would be areas that are badly made: ventilation might not be included in the beginning, and so they would enlarge their tunnels when new people arrive (or people begin to asphyxiate); enlarging those tunnels may involve filling in some peoples' homes, or creating a new thoroughfare, where all the richer people move to.
Well, this turned into quite a long post, so I'll leave it there for now.
THW
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Originally Posted by TheHoarseWhisperer
