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How would you build a house big enough for everybody in the world to live in including the homeless people, so we could all be more connected.

Samantha
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    Even if you could, the commute would be atrocious. – A. I. Breveleri Sep 22 '19 at 00:15
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    You mean the earth? – Levi C. Olson Sep 22 '19 at 00:34
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    Step 1 - downsize the population of the Earth by at least six orders of magnitude... – KerrAvon2055 Sep 22 '19 at 00:42
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    Perhaps you are looking for: Ecumenopolis – SurpriseDog Sep 22 '19 at 01:18
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    What are you asking? The entire population of the Earth could fit in a geographic space smaller than my town with the right kind of building. What does it mean to be "more connected?" I live in a small town in Montana and I'm as connected to everyone else on the planet as I want to be, thank you very much. Why are you asking this question? What do you hope to achieve? Must crime/war be accommodated in the building design? Agriculture? Aquaculture? Guinea Pigs? Religion? Politics? Education? VTC:Unclear until seriously clarified (not a sentence... paragraphs). – JBH Sep 22 '19 at 01:33
  • Welcome to Worldbuilding.SE Samantha, glad you found us. We have a [tour] and [help] you might wish to check out. Your question isn't very clear I'm afraid. Do you really want the entire Earth's population all crowded together in one place? That would be hell for nearly everyone. – Cyn Sep 22 '19 at 02:59
  • This question is pretty much a duplicate (I say pretty much because the other question is well developed and yours is just a pondering at this point). But please read the question and answers and see if it answers your question. https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/135858/earth-under-one-roof-feasible/ – Cyn Sep 22 '19 at 03:00
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    Reading the title I thought this was going to be a human centipede type scenario. – Marbrand Sep 22 '19 at 03:03
  • @JBH If you find the question unclear, perhaps it is because you are raising a plethora of spurious & unnecessary subquestions. The question simply asks how to build a big structure, presumably, to house the world's population. Is that clear enough? – a4android Sep 22 '19 at 05:35
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    Just imagine the line to use the bathroom... – krb Sep 23 '19 at 15:41
  • @a4android no, android, of course not (this might be the difference between engineers and lawyers). How to build a big structure has everything to do with what that big structure is intended to permit. Are we going to hold water or desalinate from the oceans? Are we going to force everyone to walk (which would seem to defeat the purpose of connecting everyone) or provide transportation? What kind? You really can't ignore all those spurious subquestions - because they aren't spurious at all. Unless the goal is to build one big 6-sided tank, throw everyone in and claim they're "connected." – JBH Sep 23 '19 at 17:54
  • @JBH No. It's the difference between thinking clearly and not. You are compounding the infrastructure necessary to support a world house with the building itself. While the building would be unworkable without it, the question is about building the structure. if the Op wants, all the infrastructure issues can be separate questions. The added factors you cite, would render the question both POB & too broad in spades.How helpful would that be? – a4android Sep 24 '19 at 06:05
  • @a4android This was a better question and it makes this question a duplicate because it's just a matter of scale. No offense, A4, but the Help Center clearly explains people should be specific (this wasn't) and that people should only answer well-asked questions (this wasn't.) I simply pointed out issues the OP clearly hadn't thought about. Perhaps you can help the OP improve their question? – JBH Sep 24 '19 at 13:43

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People are more than the space they occupy, they also need space to enjoy, to work, to meet, to do all the things that you would do outside the home

There are 7.3 billion people in the world.

Looking only at 'housing', an average house size ranges from 45sqm (Hong Kong) to 214 sqm (Australia) so let's do a mid point and go 130sqm. This means we need a building of around 945,350,000,000 sqm.

The Burj in Dubai is 163 stories - this is currently the tallest number of habitable stories so far. So, let's say we build a building as tall as this, this means we would end up with a square box 76km x 76km 163 stories high. And this is just houses.

However keep in mind:

  • You need natural light in your house
  • Most people need natural ventilation

Now we need to add:

  • Work spaces
  • Industrial spaces
  • Retail and commercial spaces
  • Sports areas and ovals
  • Schools, universities, educational facilities
  • Governance structures, halls
  • Police, defence and military structures
  • Entertainment, theatres, plazas
  • Water, air treatment, heating and cooling facilities
  • Waste, landfill, treatment and recycling centres
  • Farming and mining facilities - these would actually take up the majority of your building as these require large surface areas (although you may investigate vertical farming/hydroponics)

These all need to be accommodated too - and you may find the final structure would easily be over 100 times larger than simply housing.

Of course, then you need to allow for transport - for people to be 'connected' they need to get to one another. So then you might need:

  • Roads
  • Trains
  • Transport infrastructure

Transport infrastructure easily takes up more than half the land area in cities. So doubling this again may be required. So we end up with a structure 1077km x 1077km by 163 stories high.

However even if everyone lived geographically together, they may not 'feel connected'. A lot of suburban households live next to each other but don't know each other, so you may want to concentrate first on what makes some-one more connected with others.

What you may find may surprise you, feeling 'connected' may have nothing to do with distance...

flox
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    "What you may find may surprise you, feeling 'connected' may have nothing to do with distance..." There are people I only know through online communities I feel more connected with then all my neighbors since I don't know any of them. – Levi C. Olson Sep 23 '19 at 02:33