A visionary eco-city in the Arizona desert, Arcosanti is an urban laboratory created by Paolo Soleri. Based on the concept of Arcology, or ecological architecture, it presents a compact, sustainable, energy-efficient urban form that confronts environmental destruction, economic collapse, and social dislocation.
Tag: Utopia
Honduras: Neo-Colonial “Free Market” Charter Cities, Democracy Not Included – By Annie Bird
Free marketeers and Libertarians advocate for the world’s first Charter City, with authoritarian governance, facilitated by a military coup, coordinated using political sway with business partners, using public funds from the IDB for infrastructure plans, and built on land “purchased” from indigenous communities, small farmers and the state of Honduras.
Chinese Mega-Cities Contrasted with Calvino’s ‘Invisible Cities”
Rapid industrialization in China has caused a massive migration to crowded, faceless and polluted urban mega-cities of 10 million residents or more. They should consider Italo Calvino’s utopian “Invisible Cities” to rethink the role of imagination in urban planning.
H. G. Wells on the Futurist Dystopia of Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis”
“Metropolis” hallucinates a futuristic city, a paradise of glass and steel, where underground workers toil endlessly at the giant machines that run the world above. Controlled by the autocratic industrialist, his spoilt son falls for the working class prophet who envisions some mediation between workers and managers. Noted science fiction author H. G. Wells reviews the controversial 1927 masterpiece.
Model Cities: Neo-Colonialists Seek Submissive Wild For Capitalist Utopia
Neo-colonialism in Honduras: Paul Romer’s Charter Cities movement advocated suspension of sovereignty and democracy in the service of unfettered capitalism. Unfortunately, the enabling legislation was deemed by the Honduran Supreme Court as unconstitutional. While the coup-backed government of Honduras presses the issue forward, resistance members and indigenous and labor organizations continue to fight this libertarian dream on the Coast of Trujillo.
Mother-Nature Is Not A Wicked Witch: Oren Lyons on Oz
Baum’s “Wizard of Oz” as a Utopian American Dream soft-peddles an anti-nature-prejudice amid dazzling urban-industrial landscapes. This bias at the expense of the earth’s resources has led us to today’s environmental and economic collapse.
Planned Petrodollar Utopia for Kazakhstan?
Called Astana, it is the world’s latest example of a rare but persistent type, the capital built from zero. It is in a line that includes St Petersburg, Washington DC, Canberra, Ankara and Brasilia and like them it provokes a question: can a city, in all its teeming complexity, really be planned? Or does the attempt lead only to a synthetic simulacrum, a kind-of city that is not quite the real thing?