Trope-a-Day: Space Elevator

Space Elevator: A standard fixture on most moderately developed planets – while shuttles and lighters can make easy ground-orbit transfers in any direction, and ground-based mass drivers can shift arbitrary amounts of mass upwards and downwards quickly, once a world’s passenger and freight volumes increase to the point that it’s taking commuter traffic, passenger liners and grapeship megahaulers, you need something that can handle multiple continuous streams of traffic in both directions.  Hence, the space elevator.

(Heavily developed worlds often have more than one.  Seranth (Imperial Core), the busiest tradeworld in the Empire, has six, with a starport-heavy ring-city linking them at the geostationary end.)

Such elevators often become vertical cities, with residents living around and among the cables at various levels, and with an even larger city at their base; as the primary interface between planet and space, there are usually a lot of people wanting to live and do business right there.