Columbia Construction

* See also Columbia_Era_Machines
* See also INFINITE-BS_REDO
* See also Make Columbia A City
* See also Show_City_Columbia
* See also Columbia State Sanitorium
* See also Rapture_Cityscape 
* See also Technology_In_Columbias_Era
* See also Merging
Flying City of Brick and Cobblestones - The Columbia Exposition was supposed to be a Look Forward, not Backward. You would think that things might be somewhat differently built for Columbia ?
BizaareMergy.jpg
CretinousCityscape.jpg
Naivity333.jpg
Disjointchunks.jpg|FReefloating and bobbing - VOMIT INDUCING
ProjectionEnourmity.jpg|Gianourmously Bigger is NOT Better
Filler_nosidewalk.jpg|Seems just stuffed into place 
FloatingBrickworkFoundations.jpg|Oh look reverse flying buttresses ( But for 20 feet of masonry ? )
FloatyShitExtreme.jpg|Whatever the hell these things are - BALLOONS - for SteamPunk maybe, but Columbia has Floatyshit(tm)
Floatyshitt_tm.jpg|And pretty jet/heater/projector things (aimed at Balloons). YES, THIS IS QUANTUM SCIENCE.
CkunksFloatying.jpg|Chunks floating apart. Reason was : so the Player couldn't get to them or even get a good look at these 'props'
Badhazeeffects.jpg|Some how they wanted Skyscaper-like things but had settled on that old styling - only brought into being dim shit like this.
WhyHotel.jpg|In a real city Tallness was to get above the Hub-bub and the Heat, and because land space was limited - hardly logical in 'sky big' Columbia. For a 'View', any short building gets that at an edge of one of the floating blocks.
GirderOddness.jpg|Girder in ShantyTown - seems to be made of wood and joined in odd ways, and having rivet patterns for some reason. Shoulda been Steel.
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Conflicts of Theme - Endemic Columbia FustaCluck :
Why should so much of Columbia look like the actual 1893 Exposition architecture ? Simply repeating it - hardly stands out from the rest of the Exposition, does it ?? (( Game artists simply copying the Exposition, with little imagination required because it is easy. That is the most likely explanation. ))
AND THEN the further building/enlarging/mutation of it during Comstock's Cultist Utopia (post 1902) LIKEWISE looks the same -- Why copy that previous detested modern 'evil' immigrant-contaminated libertine world (The Sodom Below) ??? Does that make any sense for a 'better place' ? Aren't these cultists supposed to be Reactionary ??? Rejecting the diseased unholy modern world ??? Moving backwards to Plantation Gothic and Ante-Bellum styles should maybe have been the choice ? Avoiding any/all Beaux Art Eurotrash modernisms ?? 
There obviously are serious conflicts of ideas from the game's developers, who touted themselves as so knowledgeable, no ?? I understand many writers/developers got screwed by Levine's repeated changing of the games theme/story. So maybe it is no wonder that it turned out so contradictory and illogical ( inevitable as time ran short ).
This flooding is over 100 years ago - apparently there was 'Climate Change' back then also ?
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Teething Problems To Be Expected :
Just because you discover FloatyShit(tm) doesn't mean you instantly make it work in a practical manner, (( Oh yes Rosalind Lutece was a natural "Quantumz Engineer" -- When no such thing existed yet, nor the technology to develop it )), nor to lift up something the size of several city blocks ( safely and consistently - failure-proof for routine use ).
Columbia seen next to the "Ferris Wheel" pix really was not that amazing, and Columbia's mimicking much of the rest of the Fair's architecture and style eliminated much of the impact which it otherwise might have had ( OR a Psychedelic Light Show to compete with the City of Lights -- with the extraordinary 80000 light bulbs illuminating the REAL (historic) Exhibition -- might've "Blown Their Minds". Remember they coulda 'Teared' into the future to get that idea ... ).
Technical problems with the hastily-thrown-together construction almost caused Columbia to be banned, and it was only allowed to stay ONLY if it was moored floating above Lake Michigan, so that it did not pose a hazard to people underneath it.
Fact : The Ferris Wheel at the 1893 Exposition was the most popular attraction and significantly help stave off the fair from losing money. Columbia, after a few of its mishaps, had people scared to go near it. That especially with the 'Storm in the Press' about "Wasted Tax dollars" and the "Charlatan Comstock" being connected to it Free Press in America - seems to have been forgotten for Infinite BS - Once his crackpot religion was learned of, the American Newspapers 'would have a field day' with the whole project. .
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Columbia is Made of Chickenwire and Plaster :
The 1893 Exposition buildings were NOT made of stone, but of a mixture of plaster, cement, and jute fiber called "staff", which was painted white. The initial 'Columbia' would be likewise built ( limited taxpayers money, and the time limit wouldn't allow anything else ).
Columbia must've rattled and shook like crazy in a storm. ( And Oh Yes, the storms up there are far worse than near the ground ).
It would have been a good story element to definitely show the Player how FAKE the whole place really was.
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Come to think of it : What the Skyline would be like in a storm or just strong winds ? Alleged use as some kind of general city transport is rather questionable. The Rollercoaster shape is just ludicrous, and the lack of any passenger accommodation requires duplication of a whole transport system - They're separately shown in the game being rather disjunctive, inadequate and ill-designed.
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Infinite BS Game Levels -- Columbia is Pretty Much Nothing-There-Umbia -- Mirage-umbia :
Cotton Candy is how you sell Two Cents worth of sugar for Two Dollars ...
Bloat-hugified game visuals, and still no apparent place for any sufficient population ?? ( Hint - the "White Folk" aren't gonna be packed in like in some slave cabins on a plantation or immigrants in a Slum Tenement ). Oh, so you might be 'skirting' the edge of it all ? ( That just makes Columbia absurdly (much too) spread out ). But you really never go into those real-story needed areas ( they weren't even seen 'in the distance', as they might have been ). Hint - Even Towns are masses packed together ( even when just consisting of 2 story buildings ). THAT is where people LIVE, not all these public promenades the WHOLE Coney-Island-like place seems composed of.
A bit different from Rapture, where you at least dimly see the mass extensiveness of the cityscape ( but with its own issues ) while you wander around inside those sprawling asymmetrical/irregular level maps. In Infinite BS you should SEE and be able to go over to (for a change) some residential building exteriors, and SEE further (brightly sunlit) weird clusterings/clumpings of similar buildings 'off in the distance' where the multitudes of Ken's fantasy cultists all live ( have THAT JUST to give the tiniest impression that this place even rates as a "town", or someplace people could live ).
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That Higgledy-Piggledy game level layout ( including weird placement angles AROUND the Player's path ... ) -- Piles of horse droppings have more design cohesiveness ... Thin, overly-fancy, candy coated buildings all mashed together - too much and too many crammed in - nothing like any real living space - city/town/village. "*High*", Tall ??? I guess it equals 'impressive' to these " artists ", who really don't have a clue what real buildings in a town/city are/were like. Like that 'Emporia' level - It being an example of a 'one of each' building tour mentality - for your 'story' tour done between the gun battles.
They have Odd Heights everywhere, upon which the inhabitants are expected to walk/climb stairs endlessly ( No flying belts which a more interesting game might have had ). 
So many Stairs ( a generic level designer's 'detail filler' ) - Drunk/Clumsy people trip and break their necks on 'stairs', so they are NOT so frequently designed/used in various venues in the Real World when they are NOT needed. Rich people might have them (Grand Staircase) to show off, but for ordinary people they become tedious and bothersome with daily use.
All very Picturesque - in that 'Coney Island Fakery' kind of way.
The whole place simply FEELS like just one big Game Prop. Sorry, "Vision" it isn't, when it is all so phony and contrived and illogical.
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Infinite BS : VAST VOLUMES - How are Those HUGE Interiors in Columbia Heated ?? :
It is rather Cold at 10000+ feet ( Even in Summer, so for Winter ... ) 
Big central furnaces ? Steam heat radiators ? Ineffective enough in small interiors. Power/fuel to do it - Never Explained. 
Better Dress in heavy clothing outside ... ( Strolling about in Summer Dresses ... poor sad Fantasy ).
Just more missing elements of the 'Wave of the Hand' implausible magic "shooter game" setting. 
Such big/huge/open/empty spaces might look impressive, and the gamemakers prefer/want to not have to fill in Detail that you can see close up. So, such hugeness is a Lazy way of gamemakers avoid as much work. It Results in Endless Forgettable terrain/surrounding/window-dressing - perhaps appropriate only for the Player's Slaughter-fest activities.
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 "Fake Was the Writing (All Else is Just Details)" - FAKE AS COLUMBIA'S WALLS :
The Real Story would be about the Fakery/Charlatanry that was 'Columbia' - At least attempting to explain how something that could never practically exist ( even if the Quantum Rubbish did work ) is still being presented to the inhabitants. 
Have some scene of : The meager mass of a crashing Zeppelin or Barge Tearing into some structure's Chicken wire, burlap and Plaster STAFF material -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staff_%28building_material%29 constructs/facades, and caving in whole sections in a very obvious way. ( But then they eliminated all those optional 'decision' Elizabeth Tear scenes they showed in Trailers, didn't they ... )
Real buildings take years to build and thousands of skilled (paid) workers to construct ( and not just by some forced labor of stolen prison farm inmates ). That's many more than ever could live in Columbia, and certainly would NOT be people who would buy into Comstock's cultism or narrow social philosophy. Even the initial small 'Show City' part of Columbia, which was built for the Exposition, wasn't (and couldn't be) built in any substantial way.
Nobody would pay for (or could pay for) that expanded mirage either. Even with YEARS of time after Comstock took over, there's no way it would get built. Only in some Fantasy, which blows away any connection to Real World relevance which the writers claimed. Some vast use of Alien technology, (?) its isn't shown to be the excuse. Maybe 'shit floats', but you still have to be able to build the 'shit' ( the 'shit part' is never explained ). Tap into Elizabeth's Faux-Quantum powers ? It would get a bit too magical there, though a story about her 'escape' causing doom ( when SHE powers the place ) may have been a huge logical improvement. Columbia, supposedly a 1900 era Typical/Ordinary/Representative/Theoretical/Analog-istic American City, simply is NOT justified by the game's Story And sorry, later explaining more in Interviews is NOT the way good storytelling works. .
But it really doesn't matter, does it ?? Except that they tried so hard to claim that it did, and THAT IS ALL WAS was relevant to the Real World ( Supposedly exposing some social issues to try to make the game "meaningful" and "cutting edge", and 'relevant' - instead of it simply being a gratuitous slaughter-fest catering to your average Computer Game Player ). 
Most LoLCathttps://icanhas.cheezburger.com/lolcats "I Can Has Cheeseburger ?" captioned pictures are more "meaningful", and more "Socially Relevant" than Infinite BS's raft of Lipservice Issues lazily thrown together for this game.
People who write/make games are very lucky that they really don't have to "Know how Real Things work, or Get Done". The writer's creations do not really have to work, and writers don't really have to explain how it COULD work. It doesn't have to make sense at all, and they can pretend it does all they want. But making things plausible is a plus. Too many 'huh', 'WTF', 'whut?', 'Uh, No' moments distract the Player. Explanations, there to be found, help fill out a full/quality game. Bad Writers don't understand that they only Fool people who really Don't Care when they have written poorly with too many strange/bizarre things in the story/setting left unexplained.
SO For Infinite BS, this pretty "Flying Fustercluck of Poorly Thought-out Ideas" was something Players, once they saw how things were, might only Pause in-between the interminable mass-slaughter ( and 'bin diving' ) to say : "Oh how Pretty", and maybe briefly listen to some pointless emoting of Elizabeth and Booker. But then, it is 'Back To' the endless Shooting (and 'bin diving') of most of their game. The whole 'pretty' setting was as irrelevant as the Faux-Science drivel and faked-religion was, as it always just served to 'set up' the next of the game's chain of tedious firefight situations.
 "Its Only A Game" retort the fanbois, And I answer : "Yes. Only. And Hardly Anything More" 
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Most of Columbia really could have been more like a Hill -- (CITY ON A HILL - get it ??) You could still have your elevations - Stack your monstrosities still upon it and have the Untermenschen below, and the Rulers high above. A Hill - you could now have the inside of the hill's VOLUME to have various 'stuff' - and transportation could burrow through it like this tunnel seen here does to make the travel routes more logical and continuous and FLAT ( and therefore actually useful to the inhabitants ).
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The 'Columbia' cityscape Infinite BS shown is hugely empty (space). Why have big blocks of building floating far away - so much open space ?? Real Reason (the game) : Too close and it has to be detailed, AND it cannot be allowed to be accessible to the Player (or else require really unrealistic denial of access ). 
Unfortunately that shrinks the city space/capacity - Real Cities are CROWDED ( required 'population density' to exist in a city form ). You build 'high' because of limited space.
There would be walking further to get to anything ( required because of the inept/incohesive/disjoint 'transit' shown in-game ). Alot of inhabitants are shown to NOT be 'People of Leisure' ( meaning lots of people who 'WORK' ), so getting around to do the simplest of things would be a CONTINUOUS bother/waste for them. Thus all a Wave of the Hand 'artists idea' to make a 'pretty' but illogical game setting.
A general lack of cohesive design ( Also would be less a problem if the whole place didn't also MOVE about the skies at some substantial speed ) - independent parts floating about - all very 'pretty looking', but a nightmare to make it all work 
((Rapture infrastructure was far more 'grounded' in its period/era technology))
Sequel-itus, with copied/cloned/regurgitated elements ( from the previous games ), and done badly.
I understand that things in that game's development/production were mismanaged and rushed, but with 5 years and that budget, it should have been enough to do things much better ( Properly Done ). We got half the game we should have got - a shame.
Notice how this piece is 'just there' and misformed - an unneeded doorway and steps straight into a railing ... ( Not expecting the Player to look down there or to comprehend ? )
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Columbia's Architecture - American Exceptionalism ? - Old Stuff Only Brings Yawns :
Look at some of the Concept Art that various people did for Columbia, and then compare it to the regurgitated Disneyland Main Street style that had been chosen. We coulda had THAT other stuff ( and with all Columbia's other illogical rubbish, 'distraction' wasn't particularly an issue ).
Why build Columbia in a common everyday style ? World Exposition Architecture was to be New and Different and Impressive ( The Way the Eiffel Tower was different ). Simple height wasn't enough - 10-story buildings were common in Roman times. v Neo-Classical Architecture was Pass'e in 1893. A Floating City should be light and airy, and not made of blocks of brick buildings and cobblestone streets ( which are REALLY poor materials to be hanging (tension forces) from some Magic Particles ). Gossamer ensembles can be just-as/more impressive than solidly massive statues which structurally can't work.
Columbia also initially wouldn't be built as an operating city for the Exposition - It would MORE be chickenwire, stucco/plaster-lathe Faux buildings and False Fronts than anything ( the Popcorn Stands would have been the most solid things there ). It is an 'Attraction'/'Ride' for Siteseers, and even the "Show City's" actors/concession vendors probably wouldn't live there.
Subsequent buildings added onto Columbia ? Til it grew to the monstrosity we later see ? Built to reflect 'Normalcy' for the Righteous Population that was to inhabit the Heavenly Ark ? They got supplies from somewhere ( can't allow everything to be taken care of by Quantumz -- OR YOU COULD AND IT COULD'VE BEEN DONE BETTER ... ). So I suppose they could have continued to enlarge it and add the bits that were actually required to allow people to live there ( of course where the money comes from for those supplies/materials is a separate issue ). All that other added overblown monumental stuff we see there would bankrupt a country ( and sorry, no tax dollars for that -- as if there was much originally anyway ).
Built-in Slums too ? Real Imagination (and daring) would have had the slaves living down in the 'not-quite-heavenly' city sewers/service-underworld - out of sight and condemned to their rightfully heaven-mandated place in Society. If you are going to do Racism and Class Oppression, then do it properly. Convicts ? Who's going to trust Convicts being within the City ? Maybe Trans-Orbital Lobotomy was the normal 'pacification' system used on ALL the menials ( Sorry, no Vox possible then ), and you could have the "Culling Protocol", by which the useless menials were simply "dropped over the side" when they were no longer productive. Remember - "God gave the Whiteman dominion over all the lesser Races", so lets not have such a mentality be shown so watered-down and whitewashed. (( Don't Cowardly PRETEND Racism, Levine. ))
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No Air Conditioners In Columbia :
So sunny. It is why buildings of that period had so many windows ( even having 'U', 'O' and 'H' shaped building structure layouts to maximize window access to the interiors - for ventilation and light ).
Even decades later, skyscrapers needed many small windows for the same reason -- and its why the ones on the caricature building in Rapture don't make much sense ( the windows DON'T let in light, or air ), and seem an extravagant/illogical expense "just to look like" prewar skyscraper buildings.
EXCEPT : At whatever altitude Columbia usually stayed at ( even just 10,000 feet - Assuming that was realistic ), the problem would MORE be heating ( having either issue handled 'modern' would only be beyond ludicrous for 'Particle' anything, or "Fink the Wonder Inventor" to manage ). It is all ignorable as irrelevant to the Player's gleeful wholesale killing of 'people' in the game -- SO we get nice sunny Columbia with puffy pretty clouds all about ... ( Instead of all the inhabitants wearing snow parkas and oxygen masks ).
WE COULD HAVE HAD A FLYING PARIS !!!! ( Keep that in mind for one flavoring of the MMORPG REDO of this Fantasy place. )
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A nice building interior with elevators. To have ANY significant population, a floating 'city' would have to have stacked floor apartments to fit even a town's worth of population.
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Floaty Particle Engineering : Employing Transmission of Forces (Weight of Building Masses) to Suspend :
Magic Quantumz (assuming) have to interface at some point with the Real World. Practical engineering and construction have to be there at some point or you might as well Go Full Retard on the Fantasy Full Retard Fantasy would mean not a bit of attempted social relevancy is valid, and the milque-toast 'Social Justice Warrior' posturings and 'Virtue Signaling' the writers did was relevant -- if it hadn't already been nullified by the Faux-History, Faux-Religion, Faux-Society, Faux-Economics in the games story
* 'Force beams' on individual 'particles' ( magnetic field of a strength to handle the forces involved - weight of non-particle materials fastened to them ). Particles are teenie-tiny small ( or they wouldn't be called 'particles' ), and have only a small surface area to impart the supporting force upon. BaSx implies small 'local' distributed particles across the city -- as Elizabeth goes to get one small package and supposedly puts it at top of Fontaine's building (( NO MATTER THAT ITS Amazing that she's magically a Quantum Mechanics Technologist, and suddenly an Engineer with her handy 'Lil Miss' hammer and screwdriver to do all this - and SHE DID allegedly fix Suchong's Tear 'Contraption' also). ))
* Multitudes/quantities of embedded distributed particles ( normal material transmission of structural force ), but that would negate those glowey effects.
* Structural Stability of particles used for 'support' ( particularly in relation to weird 'Tear' stuff/events ) ... regeneration/whatever, instead of imploding messily ( and big things hurled groundward or tipping sideways ).
* Powering by whatever now ( and supply/distribution/control of that power ) -- I guess it is true that Quantum Particles Can Do Anything, though Magic Beans would be about as logical. Steam Engines churning away everywhere - unseen - QUANTUM STEAM ???????
* Control of (groups of) particles - change of altitude/position for allegedly being 'fixed in space' ( all the rotations/translation movements of earth/sun/galaxy make it hardly 'fixed' ).
* Coordination of control across city and for movement ( all those independently floating parts/building-chunks better not crash against each other ). All those bridges and Skylines can't be stretched apart between the big sections floating miles apart.
* Construction Stability of structures, constructed employing multiple particles ( vibrations/shimmy, tipping/balancing, equalization/distribution of forces, application of force for movement likewise being transmitted THROUGHOUT the structure ).
All in all, the above issues have to be faced/solved - Done with a technology base which is still really in the STEAM AGE ( no matter that the gamewriters propose : that the Columbians/Comstock/Fink might steal it all 'from the future' - They STILL somehow HAVE TO understand, reproduce and run it all. Equivalent to Ken Levine trying to make a nuclear submarine with a pair of chopsticks -- simply absurd. )
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Columbia Is At 20000 Foot Altitude ?? 
30000 feet ? - far worse. 15000 feet up - quite bad enough. Lower, and the Surface People take potshots at you constantly with existing artillery.
I did NOT see all the people there in the game gasping for breath (or at least Booker).
Must be another one of those convenient 'Quantum' things ( which even a desperate 3rd-rate Sci-Fi pulp magazine wouldn't try to use .
Is there any point in even talking about the Fantasyland situation in Infinite BS any more ?  All the 1912 era stuff is just a pretext so they can use 'old-time' styled Assets for music/ideas they could never come up with themselves ( it IS so much easier to copy stuff from history books/pictures ).   All that beyond-Steam-Punky Pseudo-Science BS destroys most of the Nostalgia effect.   The game writers are rather deluded if they think what they portrayed has anything to do with Christianity or America.  It might as well have been Hello-Kitty World.  The Heavy-handed/contrived straw-manning blows away any social relevancy the game was supposed to be about.  Ten Kinds of Wrong ( and they blew $100 million to produce THIS claptrap ??? )
Meanwhile back in Rapture ..... It is all just a Fever Dream some already-half-insane Splicer has after eating some boiled barnacle that has gone a bit 'off'.   The Splicer had been recently reading one of the 'Combo' Pamphlet Periodical/Toilet Papers ( which are a popular publication in Post-Lamb Rapture ) with some fictional pulp story about Johnny Topside and Eleanor Lamb.   At least that makes sense.
In the MMORPG, New Rapture, with some semblance of Civilization restored, you wont be allowed to steal things like you do constantly in BS:Infinite from apparently normal people and their possessions ( and going thru trash-bins/garbage-cans will get you strange looks, as well as those being unlikely places for goodies ).   In BS1/BS2 your opponents were pretty much all homicidal mutants, and you were in enemy territory, so at least you had a little excuse to filch useful items.
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Huge Fake Things :
Columbia's monumental construction would have originally been for an "Exposition', and not meant to last more than a year. That would have been plaster and lathe construction of pretty (but fake) edifices, which long before the time of the game would have been collapsing and crumbling to pieces.  It usually cost  enough just building that.  It might have been more Symbolic to have the decaying place being obviously patched up to try to keep the illusion alive, but still with the reality showing-through to match the delusion and falseness of the 'society' living there.  ( Such opportunity was lost on the writers ).
Real things of monumental size cost fortunes, something unlikely for a charlatan like Comstock to wheedle out of anyone ( particularly the government and the taxpayers ... another BIG Fantasy ).   Even in a floating city, the laws of physics still apply.  If some wonder technology makes all the impressive/extravagant architecture possible, then why all the pointless trappings of the antiquated industrial age WHEN you COULD have built a closer match to a heavenly abode ?     The first to go would be the unsightly slums and the unsavory/impure minorities with them.  They only contaminate the 'holiness' of the entire city.   Fink's Tear stealings should have easily allowed angelic servitors - automatons leaving the citizens free to pursue their higher goals.
Huge fake history and societal ills are perpetrated (feebly watered down), along with a nonsensical religion to generate animosity with the world and the lower orders of humans kept around in the city ( seemingly just for that purpose ).  Sorry, but Allegory is supposed to be portrayed through real situations, so that people can relate to them, instead of some gun-filled absurd idolatrous never-never land.
Fail at a Meta level - the game itself.
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SO to be like any modern American Town, and no longer dependent on Chamber Pots and the Night-Soil Cart, Columbia would have those new-fangled pipes everywhere to employ with those new indoor plumbing appliances to efficiently dispose of their ordure, and such ... ( 'Waterclossets' also used piped-in water. )
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Early concept of what parts of Columbia might've been ...
Problem is : With complicated 3D-ish Terrain, the NPC opponents mess up 'navigating' their Movement through the more complex scenery - Hence the rather Flat levels the Player got in Infinite BS. Sad, the lost opportunities in that game. NPC AI Firing solutions are made far more complicated/difficult by such Terrain. Players also have a far harder time dealing with it ( and simplified play DOES seem to have been part of the game design ). 
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Things floating in the air isn't even pseudo-science, but illogical Fantasy ( because it purports to invoke Science as its In-name-only explanations of How things work ). The funny thing is : they COULD have made a good/honest attempt at a more plausible system that would 'look right' for the game's setting's oldie technological period. BUT, THEY DIDN'T EVEN BOTHER ( or abandoned such ideas pretty quickly ).
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The Vox Attacks - Gunbattles Not Really Needed :
In Columbia's Bizarre Risk-Fraught Construction ...
The Vox don't actually need to risk themselves by shooting-up anything. They simply just have to turn switches off/cut cables/break control mechanisms/plant bombs to send whole large chunks of Columbia plunging to their doom. All it takes is one thing to go wrong, AND making things go wrong is very easy.
Now that would be a 'Flashback sequence for the MMORPG's Redo of the Columbia Story ( A 'Made for TV' series in Rapture - with really awful production values -- those flaming cardboard city special effects, and some really bad acting ).
Actually, the way Columbia would be "Show City" built, you could also fairly easily set fires and have collapsing FLAMING chunks go hurtling down ... Fires burn wires and pipes and conduits ( all which WOULD have to exist in the systems controlling the city ) - So one city section going down ( with inhabitants screaming as they plunge earthward ) would disable/damage other city sections as well. Just cutting those 'systems' could likewise imperil large parts of the 'city'. A Spectacular chain-reaction scene, perhaps with the Player-Anarchist going 'Oops', and having to quickly try to leave the section they are in as it destabilizes and starts on its way to its doom.
More and more, it looks like Columbia was a "Flying Death Trap". You have to understand that a 'scientist' like Rosalind Lutece is NOT automatically an 'engineer' ( and neither a GOOD one so conveniently either ). Making something (especially NEW) actually work WELL (and safely/reliably) is far different ( and often magnitudes more work ) from discovering and inventing one new thing ( let alone only theorizing it ). 'Trial and Error' has led to the SAFE buildings WE live in - But that's decades and even centuries of development by thousands of gifted people to make them that way. Columbia on the other hand is a low-bid prototype turned into a kludged mess, expanded by loons, and led by a charlatan.
You might ask : Wouldn't Splicers in Rapture do similar damage and doom the City ? First Splicers might be insane, but they weren't stupid. Vox might be stirred to hate the rulers of Columbia so much they would sacrifice themselves ( as well as everyone else ) for their goals ( They MUST be Crazy because they haven't simply left Columbia, No ? ) BTW, Rapture was built a bit more substantially by experienced engineers, using current technologies, employed by Ryan who had experience doing significant projects within his industrial empire.
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WE BE MERGED !!! :
Elsewhere I've postulated (a reasonable explanation) : 'Merging' of many dimensions' Columbias was what (could have) resulted in that huge mish-mosh cityscape you see in-game - all that illogically shaped and melted together floating monstrosity. It could have explained so much weirdness and craziness. 
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FLOATY !!! It JUST Came To Me : 
If you can have magic Floaty (Skykline) 'rails' in Columbia, THEN you could have a whole network of Floaty Roads and Roadways/Bridges connecting everywhere ( to be all connected just like in a REAL town/city ).
Oops, PROBLEMO !!! Then the different city chunks would HAVE TO BE inter-connected by walkable paths, and the game designers' heads-would-explode when they had to justify BLOCKING so many of the Player movement directions to retain their Linear Game Plot ( AND this isn't Rapture, where it is expected that 2/3rds of things are blocked/broken/decrepitly non-functioning/inaccessible ).
Same thing goes for having any kind of Personal Floatiness - 'Angel Wings' for every Citizen ... ( No matter how logical and fitting such a thing WOULD HAVE BEEN for the game's setting ).
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So Much of that Columbia Place is Made of BRICK ?!?!? :
The parts of Columbia besides the "Staff" (plaster & fiber), white-lead coated, plaster fake Exposition buildings (and those aged ratty wood tenement sections).
* Brick is perfect for having things that get shaken apart by various air disturbances and such ( It don't sit solid on the ground do it(?) - It can then shimmy and shake every time the wind gusts ).
* Brickwork isn't flexible. ( Mortar isn't flexible' and doesn't like constant vibrations )
* It is also really HEAVY ( and quite weak structurally, in anything other than steady compression - like immobile buildings sitting on the solid ground ).
* You DON'T HANG brickwork from anything ( those weird flat brick ceilings ) -- Unless you are insane (or stupidly ignorant game artists).
* Big chunks of masonry UNDERNEATH the street levels is so much worse ( heavy dirt and brick WILL make people feel safer in their FLYING city ... Yes, sure ... ).
* If you are building "Eden", why do you return to very old-styled non-Eden-like city structures ?? ( That Old part originally used for the Exhibition - fine - but for all the stuff built after that ???? )
* As there seems no expense spared ( the gianourmus hugification ... ), Why not have it all made of Marble ( or fluffy cotton candy for all it matters ) ??? Shouldn't it ALL be cloud-like gossamer, white marble and gold metal trim ??? ( Real Quantumz coulda made it so, no ? )
* Oh, its ALL fake brickwork ?? - Like the shoddy plaster, lathing and chickenwire of the real 1893 Exposition buildings ? Oops, but that comes apart even faster. By 1912, Columbia should have been a right shambles.
* Around that time Pressed Tin Fake Brick existed ( boy THAT would have rattled in the wind ).
* HEY !!! --- --- --- --> BRICK ZEPPELINS !!!!!
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The Columbia 'City' Missing Some Major Items :
* WHERE does the electric power come from in Columbia ? Even the blue orb things - likely the 'quantumz' things that so many other things in Columbia supposedly operate using. It must require some mechanisms - and I don't see steam pipes/wires leading into them. Gas Lighting was still widely used pre-1900, but that has the same issue - gas generators consume a fuel material.
* Even if there are huge engines powering generators (somewhere), then WHERE is all the FUEL those things inefficiently burned for THEM to operate to create power ?
* Power lines to distribute this power ... Problematic, with various chunks of Columbia floating independently - Pretty Vistas but BEING VERY BAD/NONSENSICAL DESIGN ( wire clutter strung everywhere is not so pretty ).
* Fink's Gianourmous 'prop' making factory has similar problems ( a second grader's 'take' on what a factory is ) 
* Assuming (my) more logically-explained 'Columbia Steals Alot of Stuff from the Surface World' ( It is a Parasitic Flying City ), you still need the transport of that huge amount of fuel ( only one of the many things a real 'city' needs ).
Columbia without these realistic (and endemic) CITY elements is just a sad 3rd grade Puppet Play stage for its mediocre combat. Bugs Bunny cartoons are technological treatises by comparison.
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Obvious Problems for Quantum Particle FloatyShit(tm) :
* Besides : It being a misapplication of Quantum Levitation ( Particle objects simply don't work for this effect ).
* Besides : It supposedly applying non-existent Science and Engineering Knowledge/Tools and numerous of Associate-Technologies a Century TOO EARLY
* Besides an Impossible simplification/use of its behavior 
Lets just look at applying simple Laws of Physics upon structures/materials/peoples reaction to them :
* Structural Fastening issues (how do you fasten something to 'a particle'?? Every 'bit' which doesn't have the property of floating itself HAS to be fastened AND HANG UPON these FloatyShit(tm) 'particles'). How do you weld iron or stone or bricks to 'a particle', which by its definition is Small/Point-Sized ??? 
* Are there billions of these 'particles' to distribute them throughout the structures to distribute the forces involved ???? ( Like one or more stuck in every brick/cobblestone/piece-of-wood/girder in Columbia ? )
* How are these particles Controlled ( even simply to maintain altitude ). Buoyancy which needs constant adjusting ( I laughed and shook my head derisively at the ignorance of the game designers placing Balloons at the BOTTOM of large structures ). Feedback and guidance and trim control is required WITH constant adjustments ... ( Any child who has played with a real balloon can understand the mistake ).
* Each part has to float staying in In Relation to the rest of this entire massive structure . It all has to be HELD together, lest bits try to wander away.
* Movement (How?) of this entire floating conglomeration, which supposedly moved long distances ( to China for instance ). Movement Acceleration has to be applied EVENLY across the whole, drive forces on one part transmitted to all the rest ( with great force applied thru the structure ). And The power to so this ??? Even just to maintain a location against winds.
* How is Columbia steered when moved (as implied)?? It can hardly be those meager Propeller things which would have to work against all the monstrous bulk and huge non-aerodynamic shapes/surfaces.
* Bobbing, tilting, twisting, and of independent pieces ( trying to tear it apart ). 
* Shimmying shaking swaying - good vomit-inducing motions generated by winds and gusts and forced movement and perfect for tearing structures apart. Inflexible bits are soon twisted apart. Weird Tall wind catching buildings exacerbate the problem.
* Unequal forces - 2 of the best US Dirigibles 25 years or more later were destroyed in storms from wind shear -- One part goes one way another is pushed a different way - causing massive leverage force which ripped the airships apart ( far greater forces would affect Columbia with its even larger dimensions ).
* All these contrary physical forces have to be nullified - corrected - not just as upon one object, but as a whole dynamic collection of separate pieces - apparently spread across miles.
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A Pretty but Impossible Fantasy Place - Unfortunately that renders the whole story equally fanciful - a Cotton-Candy world unrelated in main to human society. The Laws of Physic's don't have to apply, so why should the laws of human interactions and their societies apply either ????? 
Such an unrealistic place makes whatever social points they are trying to make irrelevant to the US History (or US anything). As one commentator said - "It doesn't feel like a city - only just a prop in a game".
Columbia could have just as well been a huge boat ( Heh - made of brick and with buildings on it ), and had just as much sunniness ( and Crackpot Cult stuff ) as Infinite BS's environment.
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Fireproof :
Columbia construction ( assuming it is better than Exposition 'Show City' plaster and horsehair and white paint ) would be built like much of the rest in that period - consummate firetraps ( Remember it wasn't the earthquake in 1906 that destroyed half of San Francisco, it was the fires ).
IT Makes me laugh to see that 'Fireman' Heavy hitter, because if it did what they showed, it would have soon fire-obliterated any section of Columbia it operated in.
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How Were Those Independent (Floating) Chunks of Columbia Built ? :
An initial "big chunk" would be made for the 1893 Exposition ( simpler to NOT have crude independent parts careening about ). But what about all the various sections/chunks you see in 1912 ( some bobbing up and down independently, and others moving about and 'docking' ).
Were they all Floaty-ized from the start ? Built in place WHILE floating ?? OR Build on the ground and then floated -- In which case those chunks would have to support themselves upright first ( all those heavy cobblestone walkways ... ) and then be hung from whatever it was that made everything float ... 
Does every independent bit have its own Floaty mechanisms ? ( However THOSE worked ... ) Or is it via a magical giant float field, which only works on building materials ?
BTW, the DLC (Infinite BS's sloppy seconds) had Fontaine's Dept Store float (upward), done by only ONE placed Quantum Particle thingee ( Whatever it was - apparently small enough for Elizabeth to move about with - but NOT float herself ). That 'particle' was attached to a single 'hook' structural member at the top of the inside of the building ( weighing thousands of tons ). AND seemingly, it was under magic remote control and was pilotable as well - So that it didn't suddenly lurch the whole building to the ocean surface ( and ascend to Columbia's altitude ), or uncontrolled, moved about and perhaps collide catastrophically with another Rapture building. 
There could be some funny scenes for the REDO of the Infinite BS and its DLC. 
-
How are quantum particles ( and structures built using them ) Controlled ? Powered? Activated ? Attached ?? 
Are you kidding ? Nobody wants to know that or how it might've fit into a more interesting plot !!! 
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From a Real Postcard : "The finest street of the City, walking First Class People !!" 
( Wouldn't be needed/apply, as in Columbia the Untermenschen are not allowed to 'walk around' anywhere near the "First Class People", and the 'cattle' as Fink calls them are made sure to 'know their place' ).
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== REAL CITIES ARE REAL ==
Alot of Columbia's architecture looked like this. It would be backward for 1893 ( and The Exposition ), and if Comstock was looking forward Columbia generally didn't show it much.
And by 1912 Columbia would have looked positively archaic
All this flat continuous ground. Columbia has constant stairs and level changes needlessly. Artsy confining landscaping that people would get sick of really quick. Edge of a park. Opens spaces. Looking at Columbia, it is really almost as confining as Rapture was. Ocean or cloud filled sky, you can't walk through either.
Notice the lack of huge signs ? And this IS the AMERICAN Surface World where Mammon was king ...
Real Cities have MASSES of People. What we saw of Columbia made it barely a village population-wise. Street after street of buildings LIKE THIS are needed - Especially with all the empty air which seems to be the way Columbia is built. 
LA in 1912. Seems Columbia was left behind even in our normal World timeline/dimension. In reality, buildings like this would be needed to contain any significant population for Columbia ( The fricken place is all empty air !! ), but you never really see any like this, do you ?
Columbia has such a Coney Island prop-ish-ness that I expected to see sheetmetal Duck targets dragging across the ground to shoot. Levine's strange 'take' about historic 'America' allowed so many other cliche exaggerations, making it strange that he missed the one about 'Americans being Armed To The Teeth', with no need for Stormtrooper-like paramilitaries or bizarre mechanical men. 
Making people climb stairs and other difficulties to do everyday things in a City is very poor design.
There were contemporary buildings like this existing in 'the Sodom Below'. Their efficient designs were available with the teeniest glimpse thru a TimeTravel 'future' Tear from Columbia's start. The buildings we saw were ineffective ( traversing staircases must have been used as a distraction to keep the population 'busy' ).
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1893-1912 floating brick building - not much worse than floating wood buildings. Oh look, the Firemen are on the way to burn some Unbelievers.
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Much better looking than a bunch of disjoint buildings all glued together.
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Big buildings in NYC in that INFINITE BS era.
BTW, why should Columbia DUPLICATE what's already being shown ALL OVER the 1893 Exposition ? Shouldn't it have been something more impressive and modern ?? ( Think of similar worlds fairs - 1939 crawling with futuristic stuff. ) 
Think of how Art Deco architecture may have been seen in that time ( or a chunk of New York City like these buildings ). Remember, *OTHER* people's money paid for this thing (Columbia) and THEY would have wanted something exceptional, not 'more of the same'.
But see : those Bizarre Faux-Christian Cultists presented in that game kindof clash with Columbia's supposed origins. 
No matter, plenty more illogic where that came from.
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The Whole Shantytown Thing in Infinite BS - Is Poppycock :
Why should there be any 'poor' indigent unhappy looking people ALLOWED in Columbia ( a WHOLE SHANTYTOWN FULL OF THEM ), when those useless ones can just be 'dropped off' (literally), so as to NOT drag down the rest of the population with their distressing negative presence ( and all that wasteful eating of resources ) ? Eden isn't the place for a Slum. Servants are required to maintain certain standards, with their sanitary maintenance being well and properly regulated/mandated.
It rather could have been done with "The Unfortunate Poor" being 'lifted up' - them being seen with their required fake worshipful smiles of appreciation for the Prophet's charity, and being allowed their cosmetic 'fortuity' - Their worthless selves being so charitably tolerated in the great holy city. Showing their gratitude to their worthy benefactors would be mandated. 
Doing constant acts of prayer and 'mouthings of gratitude' and 'Praise for the Prophet' would be their place in this society ( merely an ego boost for Comstock, while keeping them busy with organized tedious worship ). Their daily Fear of being found "Not Worshipful Enough" would be worse than some the Faux-Slummy destitution the game's writer came up with. Poor workers living in controlled/regulated dormitory/barracks might've made more sense, if they are to be the basic 'cogs' of Columbia's economy. 
Places like Shantytown only allow subversion to breed, and it is hardly enlightened looking enough for the City's charitable hypocrisy. Besides, the Flying City Ark has only been around for 20 years, and Comstock's running (expanding) it for 10 years, so Shantytown is quite unlikely to have naturally formed in so short a time. It makes little sense to have what appears to be a pre-made/pre-designed slum.
To escape official notice ( where the Police patrols don't easily find them ), there could only be places hidden away in little fetid obscured pockets for 'uncontrolled' persons. It shouldn't be there at all - a grand avenue of destitution which he game writers present as their 'commentary' on circa 1900 laissez faire society, which Booker and Elizabeth can tour through like some museum exhibit.
Unfortunately, the writers couldn't make up their minds : If they were to be creating a condemnation of Religion, OR of 19th century socio-economic failings, OR some Steam Punky gagetry-driven society. By mixing these, they only produced a nonsensical pablum to be forced down the game buyers throat. 
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Concept Art (?) -- - It was originally a copied railroad water tank design -- It is pattern/asset borrowed as a quick dressup insert. Unfortunately, it is really NOT what a buildings rooftop water tank should be ( You see them even today when you look down from huge buildings in NYC on lesser old buildings ). The 'spout' is for filling steam engine tenders ( water was needed 2.5 times as often replenished more than locomotive engine refueling ). I doubt the flying thingees in Columbia were ever 'Steam Powered' -- Which is STILL actually far more likely to work than the lame story-crutch Quantumz BS stuff ( Do anything you want 'cuz' the Players know it ONLY as a 'buzzword' ). The magic jet flamey things (on Barges) are about the same. Every building with a flush toilet or a sink in Columbia would need a water tank - with the disconnected nature of Columbia.
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Pennsylvania Station in NYC (completed 1910) was built in a late Beaux Arts style. The Infinite BS game designers had so many over-sized things ( Big was better to them, NOT good plentiful detail ), and they even had a ridiculously large Grand Central Station for an apparent Columbia population of little more than a large village ( half seemingly being policemen ).
A good part of Columbia could FIT inside this real building.
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Do Columbia CORRECTLY : Art Nouveau Spider-Webbed Supports For The 'Skyline' :
And BIG Balloons supporting the 'flying city' ( none of this quantum levitation BS ) with nice artsy nature 'tendrils' decorations on the balloon reinforcements.
Thus we have the 'plot' possibility for an Apocalyptic 'Vision' of those hydrogen balloons all going up in fireballs ( Hindenburger-esque ) and the 'city' crashing into the earth ( Like the 'Hand of God' smacking down those evil people ). SO Comstock is really looking for a way to 'bug out' of Columbia before that happens, but Fate intervenes, leading to the confrontation with Booker holding the Flaming Kabob sticks.
Yes, Hydrogen, because there wasn't enough Helium in the World ( most came from the US, and decades later ) for any use more than 100 X as much as those few Airships the US eventually built ( and with some of the Helium shared with the Brits ).
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Theory ? Hypothesis of an 'Explanation' :
Maybe Comstock Stole all those (dim cityscape) buildings for his flying Whateverthehellitis ( Oops - real buildings don't look like most of the ones seen in game, so STILL no explanation there then. )
From parallel universes where the buildings DID look that wrongly designed ?? Then why not a Shitload(tm) of other alien stuff also for the rest of everything there ?? It all would freak out his cultist reactionaries, wouldn't it ? (( WHAT KIND OF FREAKSHOW HELL DID YOU BRING US TO COMSTOCK !!! GET A ROPE BOYS !!!! ... )) Stoning some Miscegenationists - one white, the other green (alien slave class). 
Remember - murdering/slaughtering ALIENS poses no problem in the Computer Game Industry ... ( Green blood splashing everywhere - proper limb-dismembering/intestine-ripping explosions are all OK ... )
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Glombed Together Columbia Mess :
Towers on every building is artist Fantasy : First because it is wasteful of money -- Limited interior use with too small floor area - with much taken up by stairwells ( And if no expensive elevators, then it is really really bothersome for anyone who is to use those upper floors -- That's the reason most buildings still being built long after that era were still 6 or less floors tall ). Secondly - IF every building has them, then it is NOT 'special' enough to go to the trouble ( doubly so with the expense ) to build them. 
A REAL Typical big building : Has one solid rectangular block of floors, and then MAYBE a decorative tower pushing up higher to show off. For Small buildings, its pretty pointless/wasteful.
IF you can make things float, THEN there could have been a far greater height separation between buildings. They split up the city so much - already requiring the hodge-podge of different transport methods. So why not do it more spectacularly ?? - Imaginatively eliminate the standard limitations NON-Floating (real) buildings are restricted to ( shapes, height offsets, repetition ).
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The Framework of Columbia, unless it was also all Magic-i-fied, had to be strong enough to support not just the buildings, but those big hunks of masonry/whatever they rested upon.
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Make up your mind Levine. You have High Tech sorcery/modernity ( modern marvels/life circa 1900 ) Combined With some Retro Victorian Age in the game setting ( BTW, the gamemakers missed out on a whole Luddite societal conflict theme ... )
Comstock/Fink allegedly 'Looking into the future' ???? ... SO THEN WHY have them LOOK BACK to the White City 1893 Exhibition --- Which itself was actually regarded as Retro, in the Real World in 1893 ??? Floaty Columbia IS Copying THAT, While Comstock is reputed to be a Visionary ????
Columbia is later Inhabited by Reactionaries who are UNEXPLAINEDLY shown to have readily endorsed/adopted novel technological advancements ... They WILLFULLY have gone to a 'city' -- Something that is a Sodom and Gomorrah in their eyes ? 
Yeah, riiiiiight ... Ludicrous. The Writers/Designers/Managers of Infinite BS were a 'bit' schizoid, No ? ( or are just careless hack writers ).
But then Bad Fantasy IS like that, and settings for pop-a-mole shooter games doubly so.
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Columbia ... Hmmm, There Used To Be : 
Things called 'Engine Rooms' : needed to control modern things via electricity, belt/shaft drives, steam, compressed air, hydraulics. These 'engine' things burned stuff, made steam, and converted the steam power to what was needed ( the Internet is full of pictures of such machinery ).
A better Columbia would have EVERY (as seen) Floaty section needing its own 'Engine Room' - First to give/control power to its Floaty section, Second to make that section move ( big propellers/sails are missing to do this -- Remember Quantumz makes it all float, but doesn't drive stuff sideways -- Oops, the lazy fantasy shit can make it so, so No Problemo ... ) These mechanisms could have at least be alluded to as 'targets' of the Vox, and have much of the numerous Security being for protecting such critical infrastructure. It could have been just hinted at ( dialog and Audio Diaries and signs ) -- without much fancy scripting and complex game Assets to tax the budget and developer's limited skill.
Consider that if you wanted "to go all out", all of Columbia should have been one Gianormous Zeppelin !!!! THAT Coulda been a 'Reveal' near the end of the game - conveniently obscured by clouds up to that point. (( I might say 'too logical', but that would be a futility in this Infinite BS. ))
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Columbia Utilities :
Heck we saw little in Columbia of the new utility systems which WERE typically stuck/added everywhere in a haphazard fashion during that historic era (and still later). But then, so many other Real things got omitted in Levine's 'Magic Fantasy' game -- Realistic details don't help much in a Pop-A-Mole type Sim-Walker game.
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We are told in Burial At Sea that 'particles' are point objects. That "Lunette Hook" BS, etc ...
So thus, all of Columbia has to 'hang' the same way ??? Here we have various structure patterns used to distribute weight from hanging support points ( Those fantasy 'particles' supposedly, but balloons would require the same type of thing ).
Note - If you turn the picture OVER, You show how things are designed to sit on Points Of Support ( Secondary Floors in Rapture would use both of these structural methods ).
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UNEXPLAINED : Where Does the Power For Columbia Come From ? :
That Historic Period was of the Rapidly growing use of Electric Power (at least in Cities). 
A few smokestacks/chimneys seen on buildings (or in distance) are hardly enough to power all the electric lights we see ( no sign of where the masses of fuel for any of this comes from ). Power Lines too were in their primitive beginnings.
pix the contemporary generators
For 'Barges', those weird flamey rocket jet things appear used to maneuver them, but really can't work (firing only down ???) and would be most effective at setting fire to the vehicle ( If you are ever offered to invest in a Levine/2K Energy Technology Company THEN run the other way quickly ).
BTW, This Power issue is just for moving things, and IS ignoring the Kraaken in the Closet of energies used by 'Particles' to resist gravitational force upon the weight of an entire city ( at least Flash Gordon's flying city had 'Radium furnaces' stoked by slaves ).
Sorry hack writers, you really cannot explain everything away with "Quantum Particles". With the same magic technology and a little imagination, Columbia really COULD have been the White Man's Heaven/Eden with no Untermenschen required to contaminate it (or offer fake plot), and it could float off to the Moon to be away from any disturbing 'evil' humanity below ( which WAS the point of the place, No ? ).
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Float This Sucka !!! :
If you can ( in Infinite BS's Columbia ) have floating rails and city blocks then you can have floating roadways ( and more bridge-like construction ). The haphazard transportation system shown in Columbia is really a expression of sad careless ignorance. Trolley systems were springing up EVERYWHERE in the US before the time of 1893, and EVERY small town wanted to get one to be 'modern'.
But unfortunately a realistic roadway system ( with trolley tracks ) going everywhere ruins the forced/limited "Cattle, being led by the nose" plot sequencing of the game -- instead of being inventive with proper story reasons for parts of a realistic transport grid being blocked ( that being in a 'normal' state city, which initially is not seen as a derelict Ruin like Rapture was, WHICH STILL IS TO HAVE a largely cohesive transport systems in evidence ).
Sorry they got locked onto the 'skyline' feature, retaining it AFTER it was emasculated and reduced to a shadow of what they originally thought it could be ( but COULDN'T deliver despite showing it off in game previews ). The early views also had more road like things apparent, but those disappeared too -- Probably not convenient to the restricted plot path.
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Proper Police State Design :
Did Columbia have some convenient Walkway Drains to easy the task of washing away blood and other effluvium after the gun battles and executions in the city streets and parkways ?? ( Corpses spew more than blood ... )
Sewers already mentioned as Columbia's "Underworld" where Vox hid from the authorities.
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Real World Design, It is NOT For Hacks :
The "Skyline" as used in Columbia really needed only one rail - Even if it was Floatyshit(tm) Fantasy anyway ( when resemblance to anything real isn't needed and cumbersome realistic game drawing is extraneous/wasteful/not-a-priority ). The Skyline having Two Rails was not useful anyway as it is shown - as fastening those Skyline Boxcar things ( purported to be the original use in Columbia ) at only ONE support point per rail will still have those Boxcars swinging wildly/destructively back and forth on the rail (something real transport design works to avoid).
They really needed to be fastened to one rail TWICE to stop the end-to-end swing, and to allow them to be fastened properly in trains. It would NOT have affected the 'Skyhook' stuff at all ( It is the only reason the skyline is really in the game after all ). Columbia was supposed-to-be/pretended-to-be a rational 'Engineered' place, but so much of what the lazy gamemakers created/showed contradicts that.
ADD DIAGRAM
The BS2 AE Train Cars (hanging in their middle on their rail) had a similar problematical design.
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Strange that Comstock had to import some German engineers to keep his flying city from crashing into itself.
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Cobblestone Streets and Stone Slab Sidewalks - How Backward, Even For 1893 :
For something built as an Exposition "Show City", to show/expound/highlight the progress of technology and modernity (by America), it is kind of a strange selection (as in ILLOGICAL). But then game developers aren't known for their real understandings of (or caring for) reality and "The way things really work".
Perhaps, cobblestone makes it easier to pry up a nice big Stone to hurl at the bigotry-designated "Evil Ones", as Americans routinely/constantly did ( at least according to Ken Levine ).
I say such things to comment upon the cheap "Nostalgia" the game writers employed ( as in rote copying old photographs ) versus a logical progression ( requiring imaginative speculation ) from THAT premise/starting-point on towards having the game reflecting a Society affected by the radical New Technologies.
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Columbia Floaty 'Blocks' have that Big Chunk of Masonary Under the Buildings :
What all might be down there ( "Out of sight - Out of mind" ) ? How solid is it, cuz if its solid it would outweigh the building above by 10 X.
* The Sewers (at least the holes out the bottom of the block) and water pipes, and Opium Dens (and slave cells).
* Passages for the Untermenschen serfs/servitors ( ordinarily not to be seen by their Masters ... )
* Giant hamsters in those wheel things that generate the power for the 'Particles' ? ( or is that via combustion of Unicorn Tears ? )
* The coffins full of Transylvanian earth ...
* Quantumz Juice processing/refining station ( byproducts like Quantumz Vapors recycled to keep them from fatally polluting the city ).
* The huge tank/barrels of hallucinogens needed to make anyone sane want to actually stay in Columbia
* The secret dungeons and steam tunnels full of freakish monsters and huge piles of gold.
* All the slaves busy working the cranks and levers and pumps and ropes that make all the fake automatic stuff in Columbia work ( all those things Fink could never figure out ). Overseers with whips and bad mustaches keep them at it.
* The railroad tunnels for the trains ( cars and tracks seen in Fink Mfg ) which can go only a short distance - unless their purpose is plummeting to the ground 15000 feet below. That kinda limits their utility, but nobody ever said that Columbia or Infinite BS makes sense (except the writers).
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About the time of the Exposition ( and Columbia's construction ) Telephones were still something which 'rich' people had or businesses which required their utility.
Wires were still uninsulated, and were thick copper strung separately - Able to span the distances between poles. The wires went direct either to the the local company switchboards or point to point.
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Unneeded Massiveness In That Floating City :
All the Columbia pictures with those big Blocks of Foundation ( "substructure" or whatever they are ) underneath most city 'block' pavements. Why have need of those if everything floats ? Does it weighs down the bottom side so it stays upright ?? Uh, what a mess if that were so - trying to balance every bit as things/people move around on those city sections - swaying, rocking and pitching ( even moreso in a storm ). (( Vomit Medicine would have been Fink's biggest seller. ))
For the feeling of Solid ground underneath ? But that need be only a few feet thick ( should hide the 15000 foot drop beneath you and not sound hollow ). People are afraid to be up in the air, and those somehow reassures them ?? What ? When everyone can simply peer over an edge into a shear drop to be plenty confused and afrighted again ? VERY LARGE extensive flat areas would have been NO PROBLEM with that fake-technology the game shows as existing. (( But independent DISTANT *pretty* Floaty game scenery bits were created, apparently to NOT have to detail them, and to make believe the 'City' was BIG )).
All the sewers and shit (literally) is down there underfoot (?), and all those unsavory things are blocked from view by more Genteel eyes ? If there was a proper "undercity", it would need to be FAR larger than that for all the utilities the city needs ( It is also interesting game potential lost - For the Player see to help think Columbia was a lived-in/real city ). And it all needs to be accessible. So you'd best have side doors/landings for the minions to access it, without them coming up to be seen by the decent White folk. Game interest added by having Manhole covers and sewer Gratings from which muffled screams and moaning are heard ??? The "Lower Orders" are called that because they really ARE down there amongst the Shit ...
Too many major changes in ground height/levels are seen everywhere in Infinite BS ( simply to justify those Roller Coaster Skyline things, I suppose - The Floaty bits can be of any height, and could have been flat for convenience ).
Ugly girders and such are exposed to view, WHEN so much effort is made to make Columbia so grand looking ( Incompetent Architects apparently - Comstock's engaged Low Bid contractors apparently ). Those are eyesores, and there's no real need for this 'height' thing, as the buildings are plenty tall enough -- so the City 'ground' should really be quite flat. *THEN* you could have a decent/cohesive system of Trolley/Roads to get rid of that needless half-assed mish-mosh of transportation, and the endlessly inconvenient stairs. Suspended bridges/roads linking sections would have been 'period' ( many being built around that era ), and with early automobile-like things - the carts and wagons already seen then would actually be justified, and proper walkways usable for alot of people traffic. (( Not just stuck on their little city 'chunk' unable to easily traverse any purposeful distance -- its a fricken disgrace, that stupid ignorant city design ... DON'T EVER LET ARTISTS DESIGN *ANYTHING* YOU USE EVERY DAY -- THEY JUST DON'T *GET IT* )), People being able to easily walk around the city would be far more practical/desirable/intelligent/proper/sane.
Fewer of those (FAR) TOO HUGE monuments could then stand out well enough in the 'flat', without a clutter/mess of ugly/disjoint structures obscuring them. Unfortunately, Fantasy scenes were all that was needed for this Shooter game ( and those were generally 'fluff' overused to hide the shortcommings of that BS attempt at 'story' ).
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 "RC" Electricity In Columbia :
Fink's electrical devices/utility, instead of running on "Alternate" Current or "Direct" Current, ran on "Random" Current to match the uncertainties of the 'quantum stuff' ( as Fink called it ). Makes about as much sense as the rest of that holy mess ...
Being complete Fantasy, this was thus the most amazing electric improvement -- which even is capable of fixing a poorly written story. ( Or is it Quantumzoids coming out the 'wires' ?????? And the population got addicted once they 'jacked' themselves into it -- Kinda like the 'Texting Zombies' we now have today ).
And in Columbia, when they use "The Electric Chair" on the 'Damned', the Lights Glow Brighter for a short while. ( Damn, we coulda had Songbird fly into some Power Lines and be fried like a bat on an outdoor bug zapper ... Gzzzzzzzzzzz krakle zzzzzzzort. --- Save THAT scene for the MMORGP Redo )
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Utilities - It AINT A City Unless ... :
Where are the huge gas works tanks a REAL modern 'city' (and INDUSTRIAL CITY) would require ??
Now that would be funny (and more awesomeness) - having those giant gastanks/reservoirs ( Google it if you ain't old enough to have seen them for yourself ) being in a city suspended in the sky by 'quantum' whatzits ...
Gaslighting/heating MIGHT have been just tolerated by Columbia's religious fanatics ( some might still be seen having kerosene lamps ), and they would certainly FEAR that Electricity thing ( being more "Work of the Devil", which would manage to leak out and kill them in their sleep ). It is amazing they hadn't lynched Fink for perpetrating all these demon things upon all their Righteous selves. ( Let alone those weird blue-glowing orb abominations !! )
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Columbia - Awnings on Windows and Especially for Building Sidewalk Windows :
Awnings are used due to bright sunlight being too intense - particularly in shop fronts where the employees face the door. ( NOTE - There is even more UV at 10000+ ft up ). You will see Awnings on many old photos of real cities - especially in sunny places like LA and florida. Now needed on all sides as Columbia moves and its orientation towards the Sun is not constant.
Having Awnings might be an idea for Player/badguys to used to 'Land On', while making fantasy-esque jumps ( like they sometimes do in some old movies ) -- They would provide more landing pads for that activity, to break up the 'slaughterhouse maze' game terrain. ( If a hoped for Skyline SandBox Big-Cityscape game is ever done ... )
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Large Scale Advertisements in Such a Small Burg ???
* Expensive ( to build and maintain/operate signs or constant publication )
* After a short time, everyone knows what's where, anyway ( small reminders will work ).
* Crass Commercialism = Mammon - Anathema to Fundamentalist Religiousity ( You are in a flying 'Eden'/Heaven ... )
* 'The Yellow Pages' began in 1886 ( Let your fingers do the .. Stoning )
Large signs do make cheap game Assets/Props. There seemed to be general unsubtle 'Push Player's Face In It' Overdone style/form to Infinite BS. ( 'Cuz we fears they won't see it otherwise' ??? )
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Buildings Shape Making Sense :
Columbia era buildings were usually not towers ( If everybody has a tower, why bother ), but with a taller mass. For most purposes real builders WANT to maximize interior space -- NOT have the bizarre wasteful shapes seen so often in Columbia
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Concept Art attempting to show the mechanism which makes Columbia float. ( Some Idea of some Quantums (blue glow there) trying to keep their place in time, so being immobile, and not falling (except Columbia moves sideways so that put the kibosh"To Put the Kibosh" on : to Shut Something Down. Putting the lid on a plan before it can take off. Or stopping an activity already underway. on that idea ...)
THIS seems like it has a sufficiently plausible supporting structure and some substantial 'float causing' mechanisms. A logical arrangement ... ( So of course it got discarded in the published game - Replaced by those Balloons and flamejets. ) 
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Issue : To BUILD something large it takes alot of Infrastructure - Often as large as the thing being built - And those facilities often FIRST having to be built (costing more $$$) to build the final new LARGE thing. A Building Facility like THIS would thus have been needed in 1893 (or 1892/1891) to actually build 'Columbia'. This here is State of Technology 1911 (the real thing don't look like no Farcical Coney Island floating asylum). 
Consider : With the 'quantum' particle technology permeating the World ( and the World's thousands of genius and brilliant engineers and men of real vision ), SHORTLY LATER THIS Titanic would be going to a Mars Colony, and then on an excursion tour of the Rings Of Saturn. Seriously, 20 years later 'Columbia' would be a Backwards Obsolete Anachronism.
IDEA : So was the Titanic 1912 disaster another attempt of Comstock to obtain more 'serfs' (by towing that iceberg in the ships path, but then doing a very miserable job picking up/seizing the survivors) ???
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Bits floating about Separate - WHY ?? Endless complications, bits bumping (crashing) into each other during a storm ... 'City' Transportation difficulties. Massive 'bridging' required needlessly ... Other than to make pretty bits too far away to require good detail, Why have Columbia broken up so much ?? 
"Colored" parts of Columbia ???? "Segeregation today . . . Segeregation tomorrow . . . Segeregation forever !!!" - Zachary Hale Comstock Actually George Wallace said that.
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Leaving pieces floating about independently was a formula for disaster. Imagine that here some Vox seized that block, and now are going to use it as a Battering Ram to take apart Comstock's little Eden. Whole sections of Columbia plummeting to the ground would have been a good apocalyptic scene for a proper game story ( Columbias Hubris being RewardedHubris - remember the Modern Icarus stuff ... ).
== LOOOK OUT !!!!    THEY'RE COMING AROUND AGAIN !!!!!! ==
Is that a TILTING Store on that 'Block' ???    All the goods inside falling about and furniture/boxes/People sliding back and forth as the thing 'banks' in its maneuvering ...
 "THERE ARE GOOD IDEAS, BAD IDEAS, AND IDEAS CREATED BY BRAINLESS MORONS." - Albert Einstein 
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Player Comment : "Columbia Should Not Have Been 'THE LAND THAT RETARDS FORGOT' " 
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"Absolutely Fireproof" signs on ( real world old photos ) buildings advertising a feature important in that era ( after numerous fires that killed scores/ even hundreds of people - particularly in Hotels )
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Various 'Floaty' independant chunks of blocks/clustersof building. Seriously, except that it creates a Game Maze to limit the Player, WHY not have Columbia in ONE BIG CHUNK - making transport/travel around the city so much easier, and fewer dangerous edges, and eliminating needless complications in moving/steering.
Separate floating city chunks might make perfect Vox terrorism targets - By destroying the isolated and ineffectively protected quantum floaty mechanism ( never shown or explained ). Maybe crashing whole chunks of the city into OTHER city chunks sending everything crashing to the ground ( some good cutscene shit potential there ... ). 
Such events would have made awesome game scenes - burning and hurtling to the ground, Slo-Mo destruction on impact. Almost as good as 1980s Columbia attacking New York City and it being hit by Nuclear Tipped Air-to-Air missiles from Jet Interceptors ( available even in the 1960s ) AND Old Elizabeth's face melting like wax as the pirate city is incinerated.
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THIS IS GIANOURMITY 
If we are going to do a game with gianourmity, then lets do it properly gianourmous...
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Construction Reality Example :
USS Wyoming (BB-32) was the lead ship of her class of dreadnought battleships, and was the third ship of the United States Navy named Wyoming. USS Wyoming was laid down at the William Cramp & Sons in Philadelphia in February 1910, was launched in May 1911, and was completed in September 1912.
NOTE - TOOK MOST OF 3 YEARS TO BUILD AND EVEN LONGER TO PLAN
Realistically, Booker would still be in the Army in 1890 when it would be realistic for Columbia construction to be started ( and that's assuming all the 'new tech' development required was INSTANT ).
Fantasy Magic Bean Particles/FloatyShit DON'T speed up the hundreds/thousands of Real World things needed for successful construction of such a place ( or even the simpler 'Show City' earliest version of Columbia ).
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Style We Saw Used for Columbia :
Old by the time Columbia was Built AND European.
How logical was it for THIS style to be used for something Expressing American Exceptionalism
The game designers were kinda inconsistent in their story/setting.
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