Free Republic

In the middle of Arizona's desert lies something unexpected: a rather strange, unfinished "city of the future." Jutting out of the vast, barren Sonoran Desert and reachable only by car, Arcosanti's domes and curved structures look like something imagined up by a science fiction writer. There's one big problem, however: The project is reportedly only 5 percent complete. A nonprofit group called the Cosanti Foundation has been working for decades to create a city that would inspire the future of urban design by incorporating a range of environmentally-friendly features to reduce sprawl and minimize the need for cars while harnessing...

Cordes Junction, Ariz. --- In the high desert of central Arizona, more than five thousand miles from the global-warming summit in Copenhagen, sits an aging and unfinished vision of the enviro-friendly, sustainable life that some climate change activists foresee for us all. It's called Arcosanti, created in 1970 by the Italian architect Paolo Soleri, and it is the prototype of a green community of the future. The only problem is, it doesn't work. And it never did. Arcosanti is an "arcology," a word Soleri coined by combining "architecture" and "ecology." In Soleri's vision, an arcology is a self-contained city in...