Fifty years of Arcosanti

Here's a pretty nice article, with lots of links to chase, surveying the highs and lows of the first 50 years of the Arcosanti project: In Arizona, the Arcosanti desert utopia has become a kind of commune

In the sixties and seventies, he noted, it became somewhat common for people to see innovative or alternative thinkers as gurus or messiahs (though Soleri rejected those monikers). As late as the 90s, Bell said, people settled in Arcosanti just to be close to Soleri.

Today, that dynamic has changed.

"I think something that we understand as a generation, as millennials, is that everything is collaborative," Bell said. "Nothing gets done by one single person."

He added that Arcosanti residents are well aware that no single city or development solve every problem within our society.

"Soleri gave us a map and we followed that map to the edges," Bell said. "I don't think Arcosanti is the city of the future. ... There are a lot of places doing really innovative work."