Comments on: Transform New Orleans into World's First Arcology!

Transform New Orleans into World's First Arcology!

Creosote — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 16:35:18 -0800

Transform New Orleans into the World's First Arcology? The good Doctress Neutopia has a new mission: New Orleans is to be rebuilt as Arcosanti writ large. Perhaps one of the remaining Monster Truck Neutopians will lend a backhoe? Get the FAQs and the counterFAQs on the inventor (back around 1994) of the world's first online religion, and join the lovolution! (and I can't believe DN has never appeared on MeFi before, but thus sayeth the Search)

By: gurple

gurple — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 16:42:37 -0800

So they're envisioning New Orleans as a Quixotic project turned wasteland populated by hippies selling bells and clay coasters? 'Cuz, you know, that's pretty much what Arcosanti is. I thought Arcosanti was an awfully cool idea until it became clear that Soleri thought that humans would be happy living in little 4x6 rooms with very little light. It was never made clear to me exactly why his very cool, super-energy-efficient architectural ideas had to be combined with the assumption that everyone would be happy living in a giant beehive.

By: johnjreiser

johnjreiser — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 16:45:28 -0800

Right. Why don't we just rebuild safe, sustainable, worthwhile communities that retain a sense of urbanity but respect nature and the fragile environment of the Delta? Mississippi works with New Urbanists Mississippi Renewal (gurple's dead on, what fluff this is)

By: nomisxid

nomisxid — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 16:57:30 -0800

My first exposure to the arcology concept was from Larry Niven's book Oath of Fealty, wherein he spent most of the time exploring the dynamic of a self-governing arcology in the midst of LA, and the friction between the two communities. So when I think arcology, I think about a place much nicer to live in than Arcosanti, and much more properly planned/implemented. But I can't imagine living in one without a massive improvement in between-apartment-sound-proofing. Well, I could live there until my neighbors filed too many noise complaints, I guess.

By: Creosote

Creosote — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 17:00:34 -0800

So they're envisioning New Orleans as a Quixotic project turned wasteland populated by hippies selling bells and clay coasters? gurple, it's really more like "she's envisioning" than "they're envisioning". But DN has never let the scarcity of converts discourage her.

By: Zonker

Zonker — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 17:07:39 -0800

"Monster Truck Neutropians" -- now there's a link that you just can't resist clicking on! (Or at least I couldn't, and I'm surprised I don't remember her from my time lurking on alt.usenet.kooks.)

By: flaterik

flaterik — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 17:09:43 -0800

no barbeque sauce? that's not a future I want to live in.

By: bardic

bardic — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 17:12:51 -0800

I've been to Arcosanti--it's a really sad place filled with burnouts and chickens (actual chickens). /preview: What gurple said.

By: bardic

bardic — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 17:14:00 -0800

/geekfilter: Isn't Arcology the name of the city in Deus Ex: Invisible Wars?

By: BuddhaInABucket

BuddhaInABucket — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 17:23:28 -0800

The arcologies in Sim City 2000 were way cooler.

By: gurple

gurple — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 17:25:08 -0800

Anybody remember those sorta utopian tower thingies back in SimCity 2000? You could pack a bunch of people inside them, and they mostly looked pretty and were ok for property values and such. Those things were cool.

By: gurple

gurple — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 17:25:20 -0800

Bah, BIAB beat me too it.

By: mullingitover

mullingitover — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 17:34:55 -0800

My counter-proposal: anticipate the collapse of the state and federal governments and lay groundwork for the inevitable rise of Franchise-Organized Quasi-National Entities.

By: chuq

chuq — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 17:37:29 -0800

New Orleans is to be rebuilt as Arcosanti writ large. No, it isn't. (We like our Creole cottages, camelbacks and shotgun doubles, thank you.)

By: brundlefly

brundlefly — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 17:43:22 -0800

chuq: Amen. This utopian bullshit annoys me just as much as the wasps who want to turn NOLA into Orange County South.

By: chuq

chuq — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 17:44:56 -0800

Of course, it occurs to me after the fact to actually provide some links ...

By: HTuttle

HTuttle — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 18:08:31 -0800

The only reason New Orleans was fun was because it was a degenerate shithole. The people who lived there want to live and should be living in a degenerate shithole. Build it back into the fun dengenerate shithole we all knew and loved.

By: Heywood Mogroot

Heywood Mogroot — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 18:40:25 -0800

If it's designed by 士郎正宗 I'm all for it...

By: tarantula

tarantula — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 18:44:24 -0800

I lived at Arcosanti in 87'-88' (holy moly that was 18 years ago). Soleri is a benevolent dictator, and sure-we were a bunch of freaks in the desert, but not without strong ideals. Today, as the reality of sprawl/oil dependance is starting to slap us around, I still strongly believe in parts of his vision. But his total dream will never be realized, as not many people can handle living in such tight quarters--and it is certainly not very supportive of a capitalist economic system. Perhaps I am an old crank by now, but the idea of anywhere becoming an arcology is pretty freakin funny. Bells and the Friday frugal soup.

By: gurple

gurple — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 20:16:51 -0800

Hey, wow, you actually lived there, tarantula? That must have been a hell of an experience! Do you have any pictures from that period? Like I said, my understanding of Soleri's vision is that it's pretty pie-in-the-sky, and the whole cramped-quarters thing seems nuts; but the buildings of Arcosanti are kind of pretty in a unique way, and he seemed to have some really good ideas about energy efficiency.

By: TheOnlyCoolTim

TheOnlyCoolTim — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 21:04:45 -0800

/geekfilter: Isn't Arcology the name of the city in Deus Ex: Invisible Wars? I don't remember the name of the city, but it was an arcology, not "Arcology." The SC2K/sci fi vision of an arcology is basically an enormous building that is as self-dependent as any other city, i.e. living and working space, parks, industry, etc. Like if you started putting factories and homes inside the Empire State building and it got to the point where people who lived there wouldn't go outside for days or weeks at a time. This other thing seems to be a few buildings in the desert.

By: Smedleyman

Smedleyman — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 21:31:11 -0800

Interesting as an idea. I can't imagine where the money would come from.

By: Cranberry

Cranberry — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 21:43:22 -0800

By: swell

swell — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 22:16:49 -0800

New New Orleans will be JUST like Old New Orleans, only BETTER! None of the terrible things that offend Baby Jesus! No grimy old architecture! None of that horrible booze! No Boobies, cause Baby Jesus hates Boobies! No "looters", "potential criminals", or "hypothetical terrorists!" Glorious barbed-wire fences to keep out the terrible liberals, and gay homosexual people! Searchlights everywhere to keep us from temptation! Sure, nobody can leave, but Good People won't want to!

By: fandango_matt

fandango_matt — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 01:19:53 -0800

I can't be the only one wondering if Soleri is also the Time Cube guy.

By: fandango_matt

fandango_matt — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 01:22:01 -0800

You will then be able to translate this webpage from English to any of the following languages: Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. What, no Esperanto?

By: fandango_matt

fandango_matt — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 01:25:23 -0800

Oh, and I love this gem from the bottom of the page: "Eutopia or Oblivion?"

By: jfuller

jfuller — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 02:45:09 -0800

But Soleri, he does great rendering. He should get into sci fi cover art.

By: taursir

taursir — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 03:36:43 -0800

By: ducksauce

ducksauce — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 06:51:26 -0800

Thank you for the images, taursir -- I think you made my day.

By: BuzzKill

BuzzKill — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 11:15:52 -0800

I bought a copy of his book 'Arcology - City in the Image of Man' in college many years ago because it's so unique and strange. It's filled with wonderfully detailed drawings of arcologies in different settings. His philosophy laid out in the book is very strange. Acologies are supposed to be the next step in the physical and mental evolution of man similiar to the aggregation of cells into larger animals. That was my take on it anyway. At the time I was smoking alot of dope so it seemed very profound. Also -- in the beginning of Blade Runner, when Decker is flying above the city all those huge buildings are supposed to be arcologies

By: ikkyu2

ikkyu2 — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 11:51:21 -0800

Miscellaneous facts: The word 'arcology' derives from 'arx', Latin for 'citadel,' and '-ology', Greek for 'study of'. Doctress Neutopia used to date a guy with a funny name, whom the Monster Truck Neutopians called 'Gearjam.' Because we always and only made fun of her, DN hated the MTNs.

By: Creosote

Creosote — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 13:12:35 -0800

I only learned the other day while poking about for Neutopia stuff that the MTNs go back to a poem that DN posted that began Monster Trucks running over my soul, destroying the landscape of my heart, polluting the ponds with their poisonous fossil fuels. The original Usenet post containing it is not on Google News but is preserved here.