Building a city of the future

Post-apocalyptic collapse lies heavy upon the residents, few of whom venture outside for more than moments, to avoid the gangs that roam the streets and wreak havoc.

Just a couple of cars hover through Cronos, a city with a population of 4 million in what was once Manhattan. The hover cars are owned by the government, which needs to hire more employees for the police department, which no one wants to join because of fear of gang retribution.

The largest buildings in this city are the jail towers, five hulking cylindrical buildings filling up one side of the city with smoke-tower-shaped monsters and keeping the skyline from revealing the two hospitals, two government buildings, one school, multiple residences and the fighting arena called the BOS, for "Bet on Soldiers."

Residents, when they do leave their homes, head to the BOS. to wager on human-to-human combat. While it seems bestial and antiquated, in many ways, the man-on-man fighting holds the future of Cronos, for it is the one uniting place in the city - people even leave their weapons at home before coming - and it is the top revenue source for city operations.

The future isn't actually peachy-keen in Cronos, but it is exactly what the three students who designed it imagine the world might be like after a major catastrophe.

"I was reading a book once about an apocalypse," said student Sean Cavanaugh, 11. "And I was thinking about how we would be in a post-apocalyptic future."

So he and classmates Mat Boggs, 10, and Brandon Dodge, 11, designed that image when they were given an assignment to build a future city in their gifted-and-talented class at Seeliger Elementary School.

Just a millennia ago - 2056 to be exact - the catastrophic event occurred on Earth, and now, in the year 3027, just two cities struggle for survival, Cronos and a city in Japan.

"All that was found in New York afterward was the head of the Statue of the Liberty," Sean said.

The Future City Competition, sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineers, is held nationally each year. Only middle school students are allowed to participate.

"This is good preparation for it," said Joe Cacioppo, a civil engineer who worked with the Seeliger students on their cities.

Cacioppo's son, Tony, is a fourth-grader in the class. Cacioppo, vice president of Resource Concepts Inc., in Carson City, scaled down the contest guidelines to make them functional for younger students.

Seeliger 's gifted-and-talented teacher Mike Walker said volunteers like Cacioppo, who come in over multiple weeks, keep the students in the gifted-and-talented program at work.

"One of the things we rely on is our volunteers like Mr. Cacioppo," he said. "Our time is limited in the classroom, but the parent volunteers are able to provide the students with the opportunity to problem solve."

Students worked on their future cities for several weeks, starting final presentations last week.

Each project must include a residential neighborhood, commercial area, school, hospital, transportation system, a major source of water and a water feature. Students used basic items, like cardboard, pipe cleaners, sponges and candy to build.

"This is how cities in real life and communities get planned," Cacioppo said. "They build scale models."

Students working on other future cities gave their projects names like "Tropical City," "Cheeseworld," "Spice Cluster" and "Tombolia."

"Cheeseworld" was popular with a group of three girls listening to project presentations Wednesday. They liked the real feel of the city that the two presenters provided.

Student Sierra Sheppard, 9, appreciated something else.

"I liked that it's run by kids," she said.

-- Contact reporter Maggie O'Neill at moneill@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1219.