Wednesday, November 10, 2010

The Arcology, part 1

The Arcology is a somewhat uncommon trope of science fiction, a massive building that encloses an entire community. These tend to be dystopian affairs with despot police controls and flickering lights and that whole decay is inevitable theme. I investigated deeper into the lore of the arcology.

Arcology is a portmanteau of Architecture and Ecology. The basic concept is very green, and came about back in the 50s by a man named Paolo Soleri. Urban sprawl consumes a massive amount of space, and requires an expensive and extensive infrastructure to support. The arcology is a communal building that while it is a massive building, it sits on a much smaller footprint than a comparative amount of sprawl. Ideally the structure recycles its water, and uses alternative power such as solar and wind power. It is almost entirely self sufficient. This is in theory, in practice there come two major problems. The ability to provide electricity and food are current major limitations of the arcology concept.

There is a Green Tower, an arcology devoted entirely to vertical farming. This solves the food production problem, but it creates a problem. The Green Tower is even less efficient in power use, as water for irrigation is heavy, and the recycling system seems to need to be larger and more robust.


The Future?
Speculative fiction provides answers for the power problem. On the 'Five minutes in the Future' scenario, the arcology can be built above a nuclear reactor. Of course, then follows the knee-jerk of "What if it explodes?" and "Mutants?" What most people know about nuclear power is based on television and movies (the writers of which all suffer from NucleoPhobia). Nuclear reactors are safer than most people think (they dont randomly explode, nor is it as difficult to shut one down as depicted in the movies). Bank vaults survived the nuclear blasts in Japan, a structure designed to house a nuke plant would be able to survive a similar explosion (which wouldn't happen because a nuclear reactor has as much in common with a nuclear bomb as a car has with a regular bomb). On a side note, Chernobyl (18 out of 20 locals don't know what Chernobyl was) was a steam explosion at a reactor site that was still under construction.

Then there are the more fanciful realms of fusion reactors, plasma reactors, and all sorts of other ultra high tech devices. These devices in fiction tend to have the exact same problems as nuclear reactors, they like the explode in massive explosions of explodium. The end effect is the same, ample amounts of power sitting on top of a potential bomb.

Once the power problem is solved, fixing the food problem is easy. As urban sprawl and suburbia is hollowed out made obsolete by the arcology, more and more land now occupied by strip malls and warehousing yards, and manufacturing centers and mega-churches is left vacant. This vacant land is now available for agriculture. Marginal agricultural land is no longer required for food production, and more land is able to go back to nature, or be used for something else.

Tone and Theme
There are generally two prevailing themes that occur with arcologies (domed cities, space habitats, and any other large communal structures) brilliant shiny utopia or a demoralized police state. While these are certainly viable, they only constitute two extreme examples. It is rather like saying that there are only two kinds of cities, crime ridden Gothams and quaintly rural Smallvilles.

Hope and Chrome
The future is shiny, and the arcologies stand like great monuments of Yes We Can! Insert flying cars and future retro silver lamé dresses and Gene Roddenberry miniskirts. These scenarios tend to ignore the more nitty gritty aspects of logistics, maintenance, and economics.

Flickering Lights and Cockroaches
The corridors are littered with debris, the lights flicker, and if the police do show up, they are coming to kick your ass, not to register a complaint. Insert arco-gangs, black marketeering, and bad techno soundtracks. This opposite scenario is the universal No We Cant!

Shades of Gray
The future and the arcology are not going to be perfect, but considering the time and resources that go into their construction and maintenance, they are not likely to fall into social decay. Most of the arcologies are going to be more middle of the road, some are nicer than others, others are more successful that these, and so on. Some will have reputations, much like Vegas or LA, or any other major city that has a defined character.

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