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Through the magic of haphazard searching, I came about this 2020 essay Consider the Arcologies. I was not familiar with the word but an "arcology" is a real architectural term for a structure that is densely populated, has low ecological impact and may even be self-sustaining (think: power, climate control, food production, et al in one building). To be clear, none exist, it's just an idea.
Unless you played SimCity 2000, the urban planning game from Maxis. Arcologies do exist in that environment. However, again, I was entirely unfamiliar (my house was a SimAnt household). Author AV Marracini makes this wonderful observation regarding the game and arcologies:
The essay is a great read that proposes what life within each of those arcologies may be like. However, even more interesting, is to let yourself continue down the rabbit hole of how SimCity 2000 can be a reflection of our current times. This John Leavitt article, "Sim City 2k, Post-Capitalism, and ‘The Four Futures’" takes a similar tact breaking down each arcology tower and how they could represent our possible future.
All this may lead you Kevin T. Baker's piece "Model Metropolis," which tells the rich origin and history behind SimCity, going as far back as early computing influencers and urban planners. It also touches on the less-than-ideal underpinnings of the assumptions being made in the gameplay. Spoiler alert: a lot of historical urban planning was problematic, misguided and downright racist. SimCity isn't modeled after that but it is modeled upon the historical choices that came before it, which often were. (This can be extrapolated even further once you see the influence the game has on its players, convincing them that low taxes are the only way to go and destroying neighborhoods has no social impact (it's just a game, after all))
Or maybe you'll just end up watching the obnoxiously hypnotic depature of 330 arcologies from a SimCity map; the finale of the game and a sad conclusion to a lot of work.
The popular destinations of the web are closed systems but it's nice to remember there are still loads of websites out there linking to one another and guiding you through a deep dive of thoughtful entertainment.
Unless you played SimCity 2000, the urban planning game from Maxis. Arcologies do exist in that environment. However, again, I was entirely unfamiliar (my house was a SimAnt household). Author AV Marracini makes this wonderful observation regarding the game and arcologies:
By the way, at the end of the game you choose to launch the arcologies into space. You abandon the metropolis that you have spent hundreds of hours balancing and maintaining. In SimCity 2000, the apex of the metropolis is its death. Cue the accelerationists. Cue Tacitus by way of Gibbon. We are all, in the end, some simulacrum of the bad emperors.That's a lot to digest but it could not be more pertinent here in 2024 as we see the rise of Effective accelerationism, aka e/acc, the movement that aspires to propel technology at all costs, guard rails be damned.
The essay is a great read that proposes what life within each of those arcologies may be like. However, even more interesting, is to let yourself continue down the rabbit hole of how SimCity 2000 can be a reflection of our current times. This John Leavitt article, "Sim City 2k, Post-Capitalism, and ‘The Four Futures’" takes a similar tact breaking down each arcology tower and how they could represent our possible future.
All this may lead you Kevin T. Baker's piece "Model Metropolis," which tells the rich origin and history behind SimCity, going as far back as early computing influencers and urban planners. It also touches on the less-than-ideal underpinnings of the assumptions being made in the gameplay. Spoiler alert: a lot of historical urban planning was problematic, misguided and downright racist. SimCity isn't modeled after that but it is modeled upon the historical choices that came before it, which often were. (This can be extrapolated even further once you see the influence the game has on its players, convincing them that low taxes are the only way to go and destroying neighborhoods has no social impact (it's just a game, after all))
Or maybe you'll just end up watching the obnoxiously hypnotic depature of 330 arcologies from a SimCity map; the finale of the game and a sad conclusion to a lot of work.
The popular destinations of the web are closed systems but it's nice to remember there are still loads of websites out there linking to one another and guiding you through a deep dive of thoughtful entertainment.
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