An Architypical Avenue in a Postamerican City State, Circa 2050

Stifling smog smothers the surface streets, simmering under the lid of a heat dome - a once-rare meteorological phenomenon proliferating due to rampant, unchecked climate change. There is little air movement at street level to shift the smog even when the pervasive heat domes lift, choking the 99.9% of the impoverished population who are unemployed or working poor.

Decabillionaires’ must settle for merely inhabiting bastion-blocks, fortresses a mere 600m or so tall, reinforced to keep out the proles… and keep in the legions of illegals serving their “penance” of indentured servitude.

Exotic high-entropy alloys composited with ceramic layers form the ultra-light but ultra-strong skins of centebillionaires’ 1-2km starscrapers.

And arcologies - essentially graphene-clad 5km+ vertical cities themselves, bristling with AI autoguns - ensure trillionaires never set foot once on terra firma. Extremely rare, business trips to other arcs are commuted solely by chauffeured cyclocoptor.