Houston Geodesic Dome

my favorite tv channel is the Science Channel, and I spent a few days at my parents house and got to watch me some. they have a show about crazy and large scale futuristic theoretical engineering projects, and this one was about a huge transparent geodesic dome built over downtown Houston. the purpose of the dome would be to protect the downtown area from hurricanes and also to help regulate the climate to be cooler and less humid, so as to reduce necessary air conditioning and limit the city's carbon footprint. everyone they interviewed seemed to know what they were talking about and they made it seem completely feasible within the next 50 years or so, but really the show was really silly. after half a semester of this class it made me think about what the social/economic/demographic/whatever implications of building a large dome over downtown Houston would be. I think it would act like I-35 in Austin and create two very distinct zones: inside and out. prices of living units would rise dramatically inside the dome. all the rich people would move inside the dome, and all the poor people would be pushed out and I imagine would congregate directly on the outside of the dome. I think the dome, already literally a bubble, would figuratively become a bubble and all those living within it would eventually come to live their lives entirely in the bubble and remove themselves from the greater city. in the event of a hurricane, everyone would desperately be trying to get into the bubble, and there wouldn't be room for everyone, so how would they decide who gets in and who doesn't? I think it would probably result in riots. and how would they even get the funding for the dome? taxpayers? they wouldn't want to pay for it unless they were going to live under it? they would have to get it privately funded by companies located in the downtown area. anyway, this whole discussion is silly. the idea is silly, and this theoretical discussion of the ramifications is silly, but what isn't silly, or maybe the most silly thing of all is that because of this class I now think of all these things, even when I'm just sitting around watching tv. I feel smarter.