Capitol Cities

From science-fiction blog io9 comes a delightful reminder of the crazy things countries can get themselves into when they go in big for self-improvement: apparently, Russian engineers spent about 40 years trying to build a flying-car system in Moscow. Washington, D.C., of course is modeled on on layout and architecture of the past, and federal buildings are inspired (or not) by a whole range of styles. So it's entertaining to see plans for what a capital city might have looked like with an extremely futuristic vision. And sort of scary to contemplate the effort that went into this project, in particular.