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 GIGANTIC..!
Googling “arcology” tends to throw up images of gargantuan buildings for a million people or more which, even IF they were financially viable, would probably be un-desirable places in which to live. Although, to be fair, they would still be better places in which to live than most Obe-Cities, but that is setting a low bar. But it is both un-necessary and ridiculous to build such behemoths.
Million inhabitant “Ziggurat” arcology proposed for Dubai in 2008
From an ecological viewpoint it is surely unarguable that a city within a single enormous building – and 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. OBeCities do not only waste land, they 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) – to a single mountainous 3D mega-structure. A building large enough to house a million people – plus workplaces, hospitals, schools, shops and cultural facilities, etc – would require a structure at least 100x larger (in volume) than the biggest building yet in existence. Even if it were technically feasible to build such a monstrous mega-structure, it would be economic lunacy because a million-inhabitant habitat might take as long as 50 or even 100 years to complete.
