Search for a Lean Alternative - Design with the Desert: Conservation and Sustainable Development - page 530

the threshold of food, shelter, and education for all people, but we are far from equity's
threshold. Lean society could be lethal for greed and materialism by decontaminating
individual people and groups of people. Decontamination fights the overstuffing that has
besieged our environments and our minds. Leanness is agile, almost mercurial, sensitized,
and alert about the always precarious condition of people that gets buried in materialism's
o b e s it y.
Automobiles colonizing Asia, Africa, and the Americas are sure catastrophes. A car per
two persons means five or so billion automobiles for the globe to be produced every five
or so years. Alternative logistics to the car could promote a lean way of life. Structuring
and restructuring the habitat—for humankind, not for cars—of a projected 10 billion
people is an immense task; however, the task is unavoidable if we want to move into more
promising landscapes.
Circumstances on a crowded planet are demanding urban systems of all sizes and
originality that coordinate in continental hyperorganisms, producing a homospherical
network of arterial cities. Time to get planners and architects to ponder their responsibili-
ties in comprehensively reformulating the landscape. The moment is unequaled in view
of the transformative power of the production and marketing avalanches that Homo faber
is generating. Evolution might well be poised for an unparalleled acceleration, courtesy of
learning and doing's new technologies.
Acknowledgment
The author would like to thank Lissa McCullough for providing thoughtful comments and
input during the development and organization of this chapter.
References
1. Soleri, P., Arcology: The City in the Image of Man (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1969; reprint, Cosanti
Press, 2006); McCullough, L. (Ed.), Conversations with Paolo Soleri (New York: Princeton
Architectural Press, 2012); Lima, A. L., Soleri: Architecture as Human Ecology (New York:
Monacelli Press, 2003).
2. Soleri, P., T. Tamura, Y. Kim, C. Anderson, A. Nordfors, and S. Riley, Lean Linear City: Arterial
Arcology (Paradise Valley, AZ: Cosanti Press, 2012).
Bibliography
Lima, A. I., Soleri: Architecture as Human Ecology (New York: Monacelli Press, 2003).
McCullough, L., (Ed.), Conversations with Paolo Soleri (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2012).
Soleri, P., The Bridge between Matter and Spirit Is Matter Becoming Spirit: The Arcology of Paolo Soleri
(New York: Anchor Doubleday, 1973).