For all his undoubted genius and visionary abilities, Soleri did a dis-service to his own invention by creating the impression in peoples minds that an Arcology – in order to qualify as one – must always be IMPOSSIBLY HUGE..!

 

Googling “arcology” tends to throw up images of gargantuan buildings for a million people or more which, even if they were financially viable to build (which they are not), would probably be un-desirable places to live in.  Although, to be fair, they might still be better places in which to live than most Obe-Cities.   But it is both un-necessary and ridiculous to build such behemoths.

Million inhabitant “Ziggurat” arcology proposed for Dubai in 2008

From a purely ecological viewpoint it is unarguable that a city within a single enormous building – thus occupying a minimal land area – would be a great improvement on a sprawling OBeCity spread out over a vast area and consuming excessive quantities of energy and resources.  As well as wasting land, OBeCities pollute the air, land, rivers and seas and create countless inefficiencies in infrastructure and service delivery, not to mention the time wasted in commuting.   That said, it does not make practical or economic sense to make the mega-quantum leap from our familiar 2D cities – comprising hundreds of thousands of small and medium buildings (and perhaps a few dozen large ones) of varying purposes – to a single mountainous mega-structure.  A building of the size required to house a million people, plus workplaces, hospitals, schools, shops and cultural facilities, etc – would probably require a structure 100x larger (in volume) than the biggest of big buildings yet in existence.  Even if it were technically feasible to build such a mega-structure, it would be economic lunacy because a million-inhabitant habitat might take as long as 50 or even 100 years to complete.  

A compendium of Arcologies