Next Steps

The next step for Arcosanti is, obviously, to pave the road. Paolo's anti-automobile bias is no reason not to pave the road. Any city without a rail link will need 18-wheelers to supply goods. Even if the residents of a finished arcology would not need personal cars for daily use, they would still go on vacation occasionally, and receive visitors from out of town. Not to mention the fact that Paolo himself commutes between Cosanti and Arcosanti every week. So paving the road should be the next step. The bigger question is what to do after that.

By this point it's become obvious that Cordes Lakes isn't going anywhere. At the same time, the separation between Arcosanti and the neighbors is quite distinct. As long as the town and the arcology are out there, why not benefit from one another? Why not build something that Cordes needs now, and Arcosanti will need eventually? The eventual residents of a finished arcology should not have to drive to Prescott Valley to do things like banking and grocery shopping. Come to think of it, not having to drive all over the countryside is supposed to be one of the key features of living in an arcology.

Arcosanti has a tiny population. Cordes Lakes isn't much bigger, but definitely has a few more people. Why not invite a bank to move into Arcosanti, or a grocery store? To appeal to the current inhabitants of Arcosanti, it could be a Trader Joe's or a Whole Foods. How about a minor emergency clinic? It can't be fun for Cordes Lakes residents to drive to Mayer or Prescott Valley for treatment of a bad sprain or a deep cut. Right now, Cordes Lakes is mostly a bedroom community. If it keeps growing, it's going to acquire the basic businesses that a town needs. Why not host them at Arcosanti? The Cosanti Foundation could definitely use some income from rent.

Paving the road and bringing in basic community services like banking, shopping and health care could help Arcosanti grow, and might be a good start toward improving relations with the neighbors. While living at Arcosanti, I met people at the Cordes Junction McDonalds and the Evergreen hardware store who had lived in the area for years, but never visited the construction site that Paolo built. When co-workers in Houston asked me whether I was moving to Arizona to join a cult or a commune, that was understandable. Arcosanti was hundreds of miles away, and they'd never heard of it. On the other hand, I recently read a column about Arcosanti, wherein a local McDonalds employee confided her suspicion to the author that the place at the end of the dirt road was a cult compound. When people three miles away don't know what's going on right around the corner, that's sad. Having Cordes residents coming into Arcosanti for groceries or bandages would help to demystify Arcosanti. It would be great if the locals encouraged their friends and relatives to come see "that neat place down the road", rather than warning complete strangers about possible cultists.

Aside from the awareness- and income-generating properties of tenants renting space in Arcosanti, there is another benefit: Arcosanti could leave behind its current status as a company town. Nearly every long-term resident that Arcosanti has ever had has been either a volunteer, or an employee of the non-profit Cosanti Foundation or the for-profit Cosanti Originals company. Arizona is littered with the bones of company towns, mostly mining towns. When the mine does well, the company towns do well. When the price of metals goes down, the company towns suffer, or disappear. An economy based on one or two employers is inherently unstable. A town with one or two employers mostly attracts people in the company's field. The urban effect comes from people who have not moved to town to build the town, or to work in a single industry.

Next step after the first Arcosanti-based businesses: sewage. The oxidation pond is antiquated and inefficient, and it would quickly be overwhelmed if Arcosanti began to grow. There are rumors of groundwater surfacing downhill from the pond. A wastewater treatment plant could be designed as a modular system that would grow with the arcology. An activated sludge plant should be natural enough to satisfy Arcosanti residents' preference for Earth-friendly options. The wastewater is not treated by mysterious chemicals, but by microbes. Install a UV sterilizer instead of disinfecting with chlorine, and the only chemicals left are coagulants that only see occasional use.

In the meantime, Arcosanti could experiment with wider exposure. An ad in the back of Smithsonian magazine, while pricy, might give workshop attendance a huge shot in the arm. Similar ads in the back of anti-sprawl zines, or booths at sprawl-related conventions, could also help. There's a growing backlash against the 2-dimensional amoeba cities of America. It's time to raise awareness of an alternative, persistently struggling to be born in the Arizona desert.

After a hiatus of more than two years, I'm back. To the blog, that is. I recently visited Arcosanti, but I haven't moved back in.

Originally, I wanted this blog to be about my life at Arcosanti. I've never been much of a diarist, and I come from the trailing edge of a generation that didn't broadcast our every thought (and whine, and embarrassing photo) to the world, so I don't think it could ever be a day-to-day picture of my life.

Lately, however, I've visited a few message boards where people are discussing arcologies. Some of those boards would require me to register before posting, and the conversations are often long-dead. Sometimes I throw my comments in anyway, but I can also post them here.

Tonight I'll try addressing some of the concerns expressed in the comments that follow this post at Spacing Toronto. The post is about Crystal Island, a building designed for Moscow by Foster + Partners.

From the comments:

I do think that most people in modern, industrial societies could stand to spend more time outdoors and less time in artificial climate-controlled enclosures.

Comment by James M

January 23, 2008

James M. - I think you make a good point about the division between our lives and the “natural” world; indeed any shift towards these sorts of mega-structures would imply a clear concession that the division is beyond repair, that romantic notions of human co-inhabitation with or passive stewardship of natural forces are no longer feasible. Such a move would be tantamount to admitting defeat on that front, substituting a fundamentally active and controlling attitude towards the environment instead.

Incidentally, I think this “turning our back on nature” aspect is implicit in Soleri’s work although it is certainly not his intention.

Comment by Duncan Patterson

January 23, 2008

Whose alienated? I don’t feel alienated in big modern architecture. In fact, I find modern buildings, particularly huge concrete brutalist structures often “bring nature in” wonderfully. There’s often lots of glass, or the building itself adapts and complements a natural form (Scarborough UofT campus, Ontario Science Centre).

Comment by Shawn Micallef

January 25, 2008

Whole bodies of knowledge about the natural world, and whole ways of thinking about our relationship to that world, are being lost as we become more urbanised. I would argue that this is one of the root causes of our inability to really deal with the multiple ecological crises we’re facing.

Your point about (certain kinds of) modern architecture “bringing nature in” is intriguing. I’ll have to reflect on that.

Comment by James M

January 25, 2008

My response:

One of the things that arcologies are meant to address is the interface between city and nature. With a sprawl-based city, the tendency is to continue edging outwards until stopped by a natural barrier like a mountain range or the sea. Wilderness, and even rural space, becomes suburban space as the city encroaches. There are many places in today’s world, particularly in the U.S., where you can drive from one city to another without ever seeing open, natural space between them.

An arcology, rather than being placed inside a city, is actually meant to be a city in itself. This way, you have a clear division between urban, rural, and natural spaces. It’s true that you could choose to stay inside the urban space all the time, but you could also reach the natural space much more quickly, because you wouldn’t have to traverse miles of suburban space first.

Concentrating the city into a small, hyper-urban space would allow urban dwellers the opportunity to simply go outside the city, pass the agricultural band that might surround it, and be in a natural space. I know of several organizations that bus inner-city youth out to the country so they can see animals bigger than a pigeon for the first time in their lives. If these kids were able to walk the distance from the city to the countryside, that might not be such an issue.

Yes, the tendency lately is to design arcologies that fit inside a conventional city. In such a situation, there would be several additional zones to cross between the arcology and the countryside, namely urban, suburban, and any remaining rural areas. Still, one of the purposes of an arcology is to reduce the tendency of the city to sprawl out and eliminate every bit of countryside between the urban core and the nearest mountain or ocean.

Useful Info for the Wedding

Date
October 7, 2006

Location
Colly Soleri Memorial Gardens
Arcosanti, AZ

Web Sites
Arcosanti: www.arcosanti.org
Prescott area travel guide: www.visit-prescott.com

Local Accommodations
Greenhouse Guest Rooms at Arcosanti
(928) 632-6217
www.arcosanti.org

We have reserved all eight of the Greenhouse Guest Rooms at Arcosanti for our guests. The rooms are a mixture of single and double units. Some have private bathrooms, while others share a restroom with the unit next door. The rooms are equipped with rotary fans and space heaters rather than central air conditioning. They range from $25 to $45 per night. In calling to reserve the Greenhouse Guest Rooms, please mention that you are with our wedding party.

Cordes Junction Motel and RV Park
(928) 632-5186

This is the nearest motel to Arcosanti, located at Cordes Junction.

Creekside Preserve Lodge and Guest Cabins, Mayer
928-632-0777
www.creeksidepreserve.com

This lodge is the next nearest source of accomodations, about 8 miles north of Arcosanti on Highway 69.

Hampton Inn, Prescott
928-443-5500
www.hamptonprescott.com

Prescott Resort, Conference Center and Casino
928-776-1666
www.prescottresort.com

Best Western Prescottonian Motel
(928) 445-3096
www.bestwestern.com

Days Inn, Prescott Valley
(928) 772-8600
www.daysinn.com

Holiday Inn Express, Prescott
(928) 445-8900
www.sixcontinenthotels.com

Hotels in Prescott and Prescott Valley are roughly 30 to 40 miles north of Arcosanti on Highway 69.

Moving

Sunday, July 2 we are moving to Phoenix.

See you after the move.

New Place! New Job!

On July 2nd, Kerstin and I will move into this lovely home! It's a 2 bedroom / 1 bath in a newly-designated Historic Neighborhood in Phoenix. The rent is reasonable and the location is perfect. It's about 2 miles from...My new job at the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ). May 30 was my first day as an Environmental Program Specialist, aka a Project Manager. I work in the Water Quality Division, in a unit called APP & Reuse. I process applications and write permits in the Aquifer Protection Program. The ADEQ website says:

These permits protect groundwater and surface water quality by controlling discharges from domestic wastewater treatment plants, mining operations, stormwater discharges to drywells, industrial facilities, on-site sewage disposal systems and direct reuse of reclaimed water.

The job is pretty cool, and our Unit has some great people.

This next week will be interesting, to say the least. Until today, I still had some stuff in a self-storage place near Arcosanti. Now Kerstin and I will be threading our way through boxes until next weekend when the movers take it all to the new house.

Pet Update:
Our cats Tigger and Mick are bewildered by the changes in their apartment, but otherwise fine. The leopard gecko finally has a name: Gizzard the lizard! Once we move in, we're planning to set up an aquarium. It will most likely be a fresh water tank, but it might be fun to try salt this time.

1 Year in Arizona and Goodbye Arcosanti

Today is the one-year anniversary of my arrival at Arcosanti. On May 1, 2005 I drove in after dark and appropriated an empty cube. May 2nd was my first full day living in Arizona.

After 11 months, I have now left Arcosanti. I spent the weekend of April 14 - 16 moving into my fiancee's apartment in Mesa (a suburb on the East side of Phoenix). For those who don't know, Kerstin teaches Latin and Humane Letters at Tempe Preparatory Academy. Tempe is another Phoenix suburb just west of Mesa, and TPA is a public charter school for grades 7 - 12. For more info on TPA, check out the May 8, 2006 edition of Newsweek!! Once the school year ends, Kerstin and I will be moving into a larger place together. We're hoping to find a house to rent, somewhere between her job and mine.

Speaking of my job, I am now working at Romic Environmental, Inc. as a chemist. Romic is a hazardous waste treatment and storage plant. In addition to disposing of waste, Romic also has the capability to distill and purify some chemicals such as solvents and antifreeze. The reclaimed products can then be shipped back to their creators or sold to other companies.

In October, Kerstin and I will be heading back to Arcosanti to get married. Our wedding will be held at Arcosanti on October 7, 2006. The ceremony will be held in the Colly Soleri Memorial Garden. I'll try to get a picture of the garden up in the next couple of days.

I will be posting a few more pictures of Arcosanti over the next few days, including some shots from the only snowfall of the year, back in March.

I will always remember my time at Arcosanti, but it was time for me to leave. I would still love to see Arcosanti completed in my lifetime, but now I will be cheering the project on rather than participating in it.

West Housing

This photo shows the living room in West Housing, the unit where I've been living since October. It's a three-bedroom apartment, with two bedrooms upstairs and one downstairs. We have our own kitchen, where we mostly prepare ramen noodles and tea. My room is downstairs. It has an arched ceiling and a loft, which is where my computer desk is located.

Gin's Jewelry

My boss, Gin Harrison, makes and sells jewelry. This photo is one of the jewelry displays in the Bakery. Gin also sells jewelry in the Resident Art Space on the ground floor of the Crafts III building.

Bakery

Here are some shots of the Arcosanti Bakery, where I've been working for the past several months. The first picture is a shot from the front door looking at the display case. The second is looking back at the door from behind the case.