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https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/07/16/apocrypha-necromundus-hive-cityfw-homepage-post-2/

Estimation of how much space per person in Hive City Hive Primus Necromunda

Based on the estimated population of 5-10 billion.

An admittedly rough estimate of the dimensions of Hive City (based on its formal definition per the link as from surface to the Wall) as a truncated cone with lower diameter of 8km, upper diameter of 2km, and a height of 4km. This yields a volume of about 351.85837720206 cubic km. A billion cubic m to a cubic km.

If the population is 5 billion then that is about 70.37 cubic meters per person.
If the population is 10 billion then that is 35.185 cubic meters per person.

However that is an overestimate because that does not take into account any public space, infrastructure space, industrial space, or otherwise unusable or uninhabitable space such as structural supports or walls.

The allocation of space would also be rather 'top heavy' — in that those living at the top get more of it.

Iracundus wrote:
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/07/16/apocrypha-necromundus-hive-cityfw-homepage-post-2/

Estimation of how much space per person in Hive City Hive Primus Necromunda

Based on the estimated population of 5-10 billion.

An admittedly rough estimate of the dimensions of Hive City (based on its formal definition per the link as from surface to the Wall) as a truncated cone with lower diameter of 8km, upper diameter of 2km, and a height of 4km. This yields a volume of about 351.85837720206 cubic km. A billion cubic m to a cubic km.

If the population is 5 billion then that is about 70.37 cubic meters per person.
If the population is 10 billion then that is 35.185 cubic meters per person.

However that is an overestimate because that does not take into account any public space, infrastructure space, industrial space, or otherwise unusable or uninhabitable space such as structural supports or walls.

Assuming the usual height of a room being around 2.4m, that makes a surface between roughly 15m² and 30m² per person; that's the area of a small to very small studio apartment.
That surface would put the population density somewhere between 33 333/km² and 66 666/km². For comparison, here's the population density of a few real world cities (according to Wikipedia) :
Manila : 43,079
Mumbai : 28,508
Paris : 21,498
Shanghai : 16,364
New York City : 10,431

So that hive would be at least as crowded as the most crowded cities we have today, but it wouldn't go into completely absurd territory. I mean, I wouldn't want to live there personally, but it's not as nightmarish as it could be. Even with the worst estimate, using communal bathrooms and kitchens to save space, you could still feasibly have a half-decent room for everyone. Of course, the lower classes probably have to pile up in dinky dormitories while the upper classes can afford their own indoor swimming pools...

The calculations only took into account the "Hive City" section, not the Spire, so these are not the noble classes, though I suppose the House leaders might live lives of comparative luxury.

Also the calculations ignore public spaces, and from what we have seen in the artwork and in the description of cavernous public spaces, or the link describing pit fit arenas, or even warehouse container stacks forming canyons, then that is a lot of empty airspace in these areas. That means the actual personal space per person goes down. The Imperium seems to go for vast public spaces in order to try and awe the populace, which then means the actual habitation spaces would be like warrens.

The high rates of population growth described for hives also means working conditions cannot possibly be as poor as the caricature described in other books like Cityfight, with its images of people sleeping 4 hours underneath (or chained) to their desks. Without time to reproduce, there would be no pregnancies, and if pregnant women were subjected to such stress they would miscarry, and they would need time to raise their children. The kinds of conditions described would lead to a plummeting population if not outright extinction.

Regarding public spaces and other non-living areas: that's why it's worth looking at the population density. It's just the number of people divided by the total surface of the city, so it includes roads, public parks, office buildings, etc.

Everything is kept pretty vague in the fluff so it's hard to tell how living space is balanced against non-living space. If a very large proportion of the hive is dedicated to industry and various public facilities, then someone may just have enough space to lie down and not much more. They may even share that space with one or two other persons by sleeping in shifts.
Anyway, any hive city, if it was decently organized and designed could probably have tolerable (though uncomfortable) living conditions. But knowing how 40k is, most hives are likely to be as awful as you can imagine.

Most hives are not by deliberate design though so they are inefficient and come about more by gradual accretion over generations. That is why there is there are such things as hive quakes, with whole sections sometimes collapsing into the Underhive. Hives are a nightmare of jury-rigged repairs and renovations, with little regard for larger scale planning or the effect on one's neighbors.

Hive worlds don't have as much of a hold on their population as might seem despite the presence of the Administratum. There is no real census, so it is hard for any centralized planning. The standard model seems to be an Imperial Governor that only deals through the intermediary levers that are the Houses, and the Houses are left to rule their individual domains mostly as they see fit so long as they meet the demands from above. If Necromunda is seen as an archetypal example, then basic utilities like water, air, body disposal etc... are in the hands of guilds that are nominally under the control of the Imperial governor but which again operate independently as private fiefdoms.

I can imagine that plenty of people sleep in dorms with dozens of 3-4 story tall bunk beds or is capsules. This allows storing large amounts of people in a relatively small area, at least for the night. When they are on their shift, the bed can be occupied by some other people who go on the following shift. This way, you can have n-times as many people in the same space. Where they are when they are not asleep is rather irrelevant. I doubt many people are lucky enough to have their own flat in which they reside permanently. At least not in the working class.

I would think Hive City is somewhat tolerable, as it would be enough to stay populated and still have an industrial output the hive needs.

Of course the real question is why there are termite mound hives separated by empty wasteland in the first place as opposed to the "solar" type which is where the urbanization radiates out and envelops the entire world (like Coruscant). It would seem far more inefficient to try and build buildings with heavy industry successively on top of each other over and over in a haphazard way, than building out on the ground until you run out of space.

These calculations don't take into account the fact that vast swathes of Hive Cities are uninhabitable due to being public areas like factories, roads, markets, etc. Or the fact that they're irradiated, flooded, falling apart, or otherwise uninhabitable. The best way to think about the living condition of Hive Cities for the average citizen would be something along the lines of a massive, scaled-up version of the Kowloon Walled City.



Conditions would, of course, improve the higher up you go.

the footprint seems a bit small, at least compared to our modern cities. although, I suppose a hive city is more like a single building rather than a sprawl.

 Darth Bob wrote:
These calculations don't take into account the fact that vast swathes of Hive Cities are uninhabitable due to being public areas like factories, roads, markets, etc. Or the fact that they're irradiated, flooded, falling apart, or otherwise uninhabitable. The best way to think about the living condition of Hive Cities for the average citizen would be something along the lines of a massive, scaled-up version of the Kowloon Walled City.

Spoiler:

Conditions would, of course, improve the higher up you go.

I rememebr when I first learned about this after playing shadowrun Hong Kong and being absolutely horrified that this had been a real place. and not just typical cyberpunk dystopian stuff.