Spindizzy
A device that made use of a relationship between electron spin, electromagnetism and gravity allowed any object to leave the Earth's surface.
Cities in Flight is a classic set of novels, collected into one book. In the first and second novel, two key technologies are developed - drug therapies that bestowed long life and the spindizzy, which would shield an indeterminately large mass against gravity. The spindizzy was described as the result of the "Blackett-Dirac" equations.
There was no longer any reason why a man-carrying vehicle to cross space needed to be small, cramped and penurious of weight. Once antigravity was an engineering reality, if was no longer necessary to design ships specially for space travel, for neither mass nor aerodynamic lines meant anything any more. The most massive and awkward object could be lifted and hurled off the Earth and carried almost any distance. Whole cities, if necessary, could be moved.
Many were.
You got it.
Did I ever tell you I started reading SF novels by the bunches staring in '63 when I was the ripe old age of 8...thanks to my dad who was also a big SF fan.
Grew up on a steady died of Blish, Niven, Pournelle, Harrison, Anderson and Asimov...and Clifford Simak and James Schmitz, too.
Now you know why I have such a crazed outlook on the world. Thanks to John W. Campbell and the crew at Analog SF....