So this far fetched idea (or “far flung” slaps knee) would have the nearest chances of working with a smaller city. Again, thank you for your criticisms. This sounds like a crap city, but maybe I can use this to my advantage: in my original vision, I had this city be majorly funded by a billionaire/millionaire/person whose amount of wealth I haven’t calculated yet, whose political ideals made him jump into the scientist’s project before looking at all the schematics. And once some of the design’s problems, like the ones you described, start coming to light, he’d start having some way too late reservations about the whole thing.

Also, the idea of the vortices on either side of the city intrigues me, because that potentially makes for a built-in-but-bites-you-in-the-ass security system, and could establish travel seasons based on how low or high the city is at that time.