I see islands, like ships, sustained and built on a living material that flows underwater. Algae downward towers that give both light and warmth to the island as well as give shelter and populate the sea life. And wind as well can be used on these islands. They live as much as provide housing for the humanity. By our advanced knowledge and technology we can safely presume where it would be safe to be for such islands as some seas might be too turbulent. One could even tie such an island to the seabed. Or there could be types that could be reliably predictable in their movements and used as transport and some - static. The current communication technologies are already advanced enough that this is feasible to keep people connected. These islands would also work as active sea cleansing machines - not polluters. I also know there is some magic going on in the physics and chemistry of new materials which would make these islands feasible as well as provide filtering for the natural waste produced by inhabitants of such an island. And it would not need much in terms of transportation of wares/goods. Most of what is deemed 'necessary' for any 'civilized' settlement is generated by the current state of culture and economy - and a lot of it is really unnecessary. For this to work, of course, the civilization has to evolve from the greedy consumerist approach that assumes the scarcity of resources and functions entirely on blind acquisition without taking note of any holistic consequences. There would be no need for 'deliveries' of processed foods that have been hauled over half of the world for the sake of increasing GDP, there would be no need for redundant, cheap electronics made so that they break in a year or so so that people would need to replace them, there would be no need for 'clothes' emporiums that sell lowest possible quality rags made in some place far away by cheap and guarded laborers. All of this can be produced by people themselves and supplied for in quality that makes so much work unnecessary and the interconnectednes that we can observe today already provides most of these things, like the open source nature of so many electronics and software projects, for example and 3D printing has conceptually already made so many corporate industries redundant. We need teachers, we need doctors and scholars, scientists of all kinds, but most of all we need people who are interested, not employees. As Russell wrote in his book about revolution that is often misquoted, you have to see the `evolution` and `re` and re-think the concept of what that suggests. Oh right, I talked to Russell in a dream tonight! :D