
Arcosanti, Paolo Soleri’s Arizona experiment in urban planning - anarbadalov
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bj7jjd/arcosanti-city-future-paolo-soleri-arcology
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avs733
My father had been excited and advocating about Arcosanti for years. We
visited on a trip through AZ and he left just forelorn and heartbroken. It was
somewhat humorous because he went from weeks of not being able to stop talking
about it to just silence in the span of the one hour visit.

Great idea, but as with all projects - execution trumps vision.

~~~
passivepinetree
Do you mind elaborating? What specifically was so disappointing?

When did you guys visit? Has anything changed since then?

~~~
ianai
I liked arcosanti when I visited it. It was very much a small group of people
essentially working for the artist though. I think the concept has merit. But
this particular example was maybe co-opted for cheap labor.

I say that as that may be something OPs father saw and felt disillusioned. I
think even that may be a fine thing. Things have to start somewhere.

~~~
Gargoyle
I agree. It quite lived up to and even surpassed my expectations. But this
would have been in the 90s. They had a nice little core built and it was a
functioning artist colony. I've got a metal tile I bought there on my computer
desk right now, as a little reminder of other possibilities.

~~~
jhbadger
But that's just it. It was supposed to be the FUTURE, not just some people
making bells like you can kind anywhere.

~~~
ianai
And we were going to have flying cars and colonies throughout space by now ;)

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js2
AMA from HN contributor nkoren who lived in Arcosanti for five years:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9072960](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9072960)

~~~
nkoren
Hah, you beat me to it! :-) Still happy to answer questions, although this is
trending on a particularly bad day, as I'm moving house. Leave a question
here, however, and I'll answer it.

~~~
soperj
I'm reading through your AMA, but how about, what would you do differently
today if designing it from the ground up?

EDIT: The ama wasn't very long. Also the place seems pretty small, but as
someone who doesn't really know anything about it, what was the plan once it
breached 5000 people?

~~~
soperj
Also, what did they do with the garbage?

~~~
nkoren
Answering this question first; will come back to your other tomorrow.

\- Organic waste is composted for the farm. \- Glass is broken down into
aggregate for the concrete (glass recycling is barely ecologically
justifiable; reuse is better). \- Other recyclable and non-recyclable waste is
separated on-site and shipped off-site for a waste-disposal company to handle.

So not _overwhelmingly_ different to other places, in that respect.

~~~
soperj
Thanks. Looking forward to the other answer :) Hope the move went well.

~~~
nkoren
Posted an answer for you. As for the move -- I feel like I've spent the last
two days in a bar fight. Definitely need to be rich enough to pay for
professional movers the next time I do this!

~~~
soperj
Can't agree more. moving is the worst.

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simonebrunozzi
I visited Arcosanti in 2014. On one side, amazing place. On the other, it's a
failed project. Soleri stated that it can only be self-sustaining when it
reaches 5,000 people. I think it never went above 200, and it's now below 100.

~~~
acgourley
I was there earlier this year.

The story is complex, but my understanding is that the main failure point was
the local officials not wanting Arcosanti to exist and putting up regulatory
barriers.

It's worth noting that Soleri ran the project as a benevolent dictator, and
when he fell into the poor health of old age most decisions stopped. He's
recently past and left behind a bit of a power vacuum and the other people
involved are reorganizing to deal with that. Coming out the other side of that
reorg is an opportunity for change and it's too early to assume Arcosanti will
stay in it's current form.

They are basically blocked by money. If they could get enough money to pave
the road to the property they could get building permits again. They need
either a rich benefactor or a group of people interested in buying into the
concept (and the leadership capacity to manage that).

~~~
brianshaler
Even with paved access and a substantial budget, I'm not sure building permits
would be feasible for any future construction. I don't know that they've been
singled out by local officials so much as the original designs weren't forward
compatible with modern (1980's+) building requirements.

They've done a commendable job of trying to keep up with some modern
advancements since the original designs were inked in the 60's. They have
fiber optic internet access, some solar panels, and a few ADA-compliant ramps.
My concerns would be more about integrity of the foundations. Modern
surveying, concrete chemistry, and so on have raised the bar. I think there
may have also been problems with routing utility lines with ventilation shafts
and not having much of an alternative due to the structures being solid, load-
bearing concrete.

As an organization, I don't have very much faith in the leadership doing much
more than barely staying afloat. There's a strong bias for seniority over
meritocracy, which over the long term frustrates and deflects talented people
with good ideas and favors people who just stick around or have don't have
better alternatives.

~~~
nkoren
> As an organization, I don't have very much faith in the leadership doing
> much more than barely staying afloat. There's a strong bias for seniority
> over meritocracy, which over the long term frustrates and deflects talented
> people with good ideas and favors people who just stick around or have don't
> have better alternatives.

Upvoted for clearly knowing what you're talking about. :-)

I built some of those foundations, back in the early 90s. Not much to worry
about there -- they're tied straight into the basalt bedrock. Concerns about
the extensibility and adaptability of the construction are well-placed
however.

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kkylin
We visited a few years ago. It really is worth seeing in person, particularly
if you were already making the drive from Phoenix up to Sedona / Flagstaff /
Grand Canyon and can spare an hour or two. One really can sense both Soleri's
vision and how far the implementation fell short of his ideals.

By coincidence, we had visited shortly after Soleri died (had no idea until we
got there). One of the people we met described Soleri's last visit to
Arcosanti a few months prior. My memory's fuzzy now, but I think they said
that he had looked around without saying much, then said something like "I'm
done," and never went there again. (My apologies for misremembering the quote,
it's been a little while and I haven't thought about it very often.)

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tiredwired
I visited Arcosanti as a child in the late 70's and then again about 10 years
ago. It looked like the city of the future in the 70's. 30 years later it did
not seem like it aged well. It's like those Olympic stadiums that fall into
disrepair a few years after the Olympics.

I visited Biosphere 2. It's a completely different environment from Arcosanti.
It failed to meet expectations despite how much money was invested.

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spraak
> It's just that at a certain point, the stripmalls and uniform beige housing
> developments give way to creosote, cacti, and the equally beige landscape of
> the Sonoran desert.

I spent half my life there. So depressing, except when finally getting out
into the natural desert.

~~~
Bartweiss
"Equally beige" seems harsh of the writer. Phoenix is one of my least-favorite
cities, but the Sonoran Desert is absolutely beautiful and far from bland. As
you say, the only highlight of Phoenix for me was getting out of it.

~~~
spraak
I agree, the Sonoran Desert is so refreshing, and I hadn't actually caught
that they'd said it was equally beige.

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1024core
Not much of a "city", it appears:
[https://www.google.com/maps/place/Arcosanti,+AZ+86333/@34.34...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Arcosanti,+AZ+86333/@34.3427946,-112.1015342,283m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x872cef0edebffb03:0x68c31f0f2107d029!8m2!3d34.3425315!4d-112.1005547)

I'm not dismissing the idea at all; I'd just like to point out that a lot of
the problems we see currently in cities are caused by the presence of a larger
number of people.

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craftyguy
Where do they get their water from? Don't we currently have (or will have) a
huge problem with supporting populations in areas where there is no local
sustainable source of water?

~~~
nkoren
The Agua Fria river flows about half a mile away from the site. Although it's
rarely above ground, the subsurface flow is the third-largest in the state,
and there aren't very many people upstream. Arcosanti has a well and gets all
its water from there.

Interestingly, the area is dotted with the ruins of numerous large Hohokam
settlements; it's obvious that the population was much greater about 600 years
ago than it is today. The Hohokam built some pretty sophisticated aqueducts,
one of which is located on the Arcosanti property, which brought water up from
the river to the settlements on top of the mesa. At the time, it seems that
the rainfall pattern was dominated by small but frequent winter storms,
resulting in almost year-round surface flow. But a change in the climate about
600 years ago switched the rainfall pattern monsoon-type: dry in the winter,
and flash floods in the summer. The Hohokam aqueduct system couldn't cope with
this, and their civilisation collapsed. So it's definitely a point worth being
concerned about in that environment.

Arcosanti, however, is fine.

~~~
sbierwagen
>which brought water up from the river to the settlements on top of the mesa

They pumped water uphill?

~~~
nkoren
No, they intercepted the water far enough upstream of their settlements. Let's
say you have a pueblo on a 200 ft mesa, above a river that's running at a 4%
gradient. Your aqueduct needs a 2% gradient to maintain good flow -- the
Hohokam were excellent at maintaining consistent gradients over very long
distances -- so what you need to do is build a small check dam 200 / (4% - 2%)
= 10,000 ft upstream, with the stone aqueduct wending its way "up" the side of
the mesa from there. Ruins of these kind of structures can be seen all over
the area.

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nerpderp83
I visited in 2001. Concretesanti. It would far easier to buy land in Detroit
and un-incorporate, or re-incorporate. I wouldn't use it as an argument for or
against. It happened, and I am sure there are lots of lessons, but it
definitely needed more people, more organic growth. Actually, it did need way
more plants. And probably more technical folks.

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dpleuler
I visited Acrosanti this past summer. They have a few rooms available on
AirBnB which I fully suggest checking out.

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na85
Now I know I where the guy that beat Sim City got the name "Magnasanti".

Impressive!

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JohnJamesRambo
I hope the future is more aesthetically pleasing than this.

~~~
acgourley
I don't think the Vice article did a good job capturing its beauty. It is
really marvelous in person.

