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W00h! I grew up in Whittier, AK. Ask me Anything! Haha, seriously, I moved to Whittier at the age of 2 in 1974 and lived there until 1986.
The big change there since I left has been the tunnel. When I was there you had to drive your car up onto a railroad flatcar (and pay a steep ticket price) to get out. Anchorage is only 55 miles away, but really it's two mountains away. The railroad sold passenger service only as a requirement of the state and prioritized it behind freight. Between that, avalanches and assorted weather problems, you could wait hours and hours for a train. Winter service wasn't even daily, back then. We didn't even have cable. Just PBS and one channel that mixed shows from the three big networks. It was strange.
Yes, most residents live in one big 14 story high-rise in rural Alaska.
I most definitely do not miss it. I recommend this book if you want more info:
I was in Whittier in 1991, two years after the oil spill. I'll say that even then there was other housing and not everyone lived in the one building. You can easily see housing dotted around the area and the building sits back a bit from the water. The pictures in this article shows a remodeled building but when I was there it was in some disrepair. And as fishermen from around the prince william sound used to say, "There's no place shittier than Whittier.'
I was told the main reason Whittier exists is because it's the only port deep enough to dock warships. I was fishing out of Cordova which you can only get to by plane or boat but if you wanted to go to anchorage, you could take a small car ferry to Whittier.
I will grasp this amazing opportunity and flood you with these questions:
1. Why the town even exists? Article tells nothing about its purpose.
2. What are the most jobs? Is there any production?
3. How did it feel to live in such a small community?
I'm from Cordova and sometimes my dad and I would dock the boat in Whittier during closures. I remember playing connect four with Irma at the Sportsman and drink Roy Rogers (which is also where I learned how to play pool, I was between 7-14 then)
Fished the sound in one way or another until I was 20 and moved away.
What's it like having an entire town in one building? Crime? Illness? Religious events? Births? Deaths?
How does property ownership work? Do people rent or own?
Do they pay condo fees?
I'm curious as to why people choose to live in a place like that. There are far more hospitable places to live in around the world - why would a family choose to live in a frozen remote place such as this. How is it like growing up? Did you have friends to play with? What's teenage life like? As a teenager I'd be devastated if the girl/boy ratio was skewed.
How much does it cost to live there? Like that guy who is running a grocery store? Seems like he could spend his whole day with browsing the web given the customers to expect!
How's the Internet connectivity? Is satellite the only option?
Tell me about the cannabis.
I live in Alaska and have visited Whittier multiple times. Every time we go, my wife and I comment about how great of a setting it would be for a zombie apocalypse movie.
"Oh it's only accessible by water or the main tunnel, it's easy to secure" "oops we forgot about securing the old train tunnel" "oh no they're in the apartment building, let's go hide out in the creepy old abandoned building down the street"
... clearly I'm not going to be writing the screenplay, but the location has a lot of potential!
It would be a great place to hold out with a large group if you had a way to obtain and import supplies and you cleared the building first. You'd probably be able to spot anyone coming or going (living or undead), and it would be likely that very few zombies would be in the surrounding land.
Also, of course zombie fiction requires a major suspension of disbelief in this regard, but the damp/cold weather would cause the zombie bodies to freeze (at below zero) or decay faster (at above zero, though I suspect it is rarely if ever above zero)
"he has recently been in talks with two reality television production companies and the producers of a Gerard Butler submarine movie."
http://reedyoung.com/project/whittier-alaska/r-young-whittie...
Not quite the same, I guess.
This arrangement looks a lot better than the norm in that area. The typical 200-person remote Alaskan town is more of a shantytown, a depressing collection of low-quality single-story shacks. This at least looks like solid construction, probably more weatherproof than the norm, and with some indoor community spaces. Seems like a decent solution for such a town, in the rare case where the capital to build such a building is available (in this case it was only because the U.S. military built it).
Whittier isn't anything like "remote" by Alaska standards.
It's on the rail system and (now) the road system.
Most Alaska towns and villages aren't.
Photographer has more photos here: http://reedyoung.com/project/whittier-alaska/r-young-whittie...
Also the full version of the article in OP's link
There are some great images here: http://www.wildnatureimages.com/Whittier.htm
This one gives a great aerial view of the town: http://www.wildnatureimages.com/Aerial_Photos_Whittier.htm
It is one huge parking lot.
It would be interesting if someone tried this in one of these larger cities with high rises like Singapore. You'd create a smaller groups with a sense of community while still giving members the benefits of living in a large city. The reason I thought of this is it reminded me of a strategy of using small bible study groups being employed in a large church that was part of my alma mater. The idea is that it was easier and more intimate in these small groups, so they'd have the ability to hold more personal sutdy sessions. Of course, they still belonged to the main body and had those advantages, such as a larger number of volunteers, etc.
Something like that could create the "small town atmosphere" many city dwellers seek without destroying the city.
Whittier is also home to the Buckner Building. 250k square feet, abandoned after the 1964 earthquake and left to rot. In other words, a perfect place for indoor skiing. http://vimeo.com/50860740
This article makes it sound like some remote wilderness where you would freeze instantly when you go outside. The climate there (according to wikipedia) isn't that cold, right now it's -12c with a high of 3c over the next few days - there are plenty of European cities with colder climates.
Still an interesting place none the less. They have an official website with more details: http://begichtowers.com/ - there is a unit for sale for $40k if anyone is interested :D
This video is about a Teacher who lives in that building. It's really cool: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naPguX84Amg
A good friend of mine just finished up a year and a half of living and photographing in Whittier. She has a few amazing photos here: http://documentarystudies.duke.edu/uploads/media_items/city-...
The stories I've heard about this town are wild
I wouldn't mind living there. I've been dreaming about moving somewhere remote and just do freelance work. The only requirement is a good internet connection which sadly excludes a lot of cool places.
This reminds me of Fermont[1], a remote Canadian city in northern Quebec that I visited when I was young. There is this 1.3 km long building shaped like a wall with all services, shops, restaurants and apartments in it. The wall protects the rest of the city from northern winds.
You can virtually drive through the infamous train tunnel in Google Street View: http://goo.gl/g1p9Kj
This article inspired me to browse Google Maps around the area. Surprisingly I found this US/Canada border crossing that is completely unguarded: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Dawson,+YT,+Canada/@62.615...
Literally just signs by the side of the road. Even the Top of the World Highway has a Customs inspection shack (which is farther north and seemingly more remote).
And I lived in a city with about 14 million people, where one building had about 3 thousand people living in it (it has its own zip code). So different it made me want to visit this town in Alaska.
It would be interesting to see what these people do for a living. Why are they there? There are children, so there must be families who have decided to move there.
We took an Alaskan cruise last year on Princess. We left from Vancouver and our last port of call was in Whittier. Then we had to take our turn going through the train/car tunnel to Anchorage for our flight home. If you mistime your ride through the tunnel you can miss your flight. We had a really late flight so we had no problems.
Zillow lists possibly 4 homes for sale. (It says 5 but I think one is a duplicate.) As well as the tower which others mentioned, apparently there also a condo called Whittier Manor.
Funny how that works. I saw somebody mention this city in a thread on Reddit yesterday. He talked about visiting somebody there and having to wait 1.5 hours because the one-way-tunnel changes "direction" every 2 hours...
Reminds me of Chungking Mansions in Hong Kong http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chungking_Mansions
I googled the location, expecting it to be in the far north of Alaska, given the description. But it's just southeast of Anchorage. Is the weather really that much worse?
Reminds me of the film Snowpiercer.
And even then you could get home grown weed:
> A pot bust on the tenth floor led to the police donating hydroponic equipment to Whittier’s school for a vegetable garden, which Joey Lipscomb oversaw through eighth grade.
Amazing.
It sounds like emacs to me. Pure awesomeness.
Bigger and utopic.
There's a TV series in that for sure!
Kind of reminds me of Peach Trees from the Judge Dredd movie - though more cheerful mind you.
Beautiful photographs, would love to see a documentary about this!
Wow, it's like a stationary Snowpiercer.
Real-life fallout 3?
Kowloon of the west :)
Why is this on hackernews? Stick to tech.
Hell most jails in the U.S dwarf this complex. Dear lord I hope an EMP never hits any of those towns. Sure hope the gov hasn't taken away the ability to protect yourself.