Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
that “utopianism of one form or another, in the positive or the pejorative
sense, permeates all environmentalism.”
17
Richard Register fi rst coined the term
eco-city
in his 1987 topic
Eco-city
Berkeley,
in which he cites the signifi cant infl uence of Paolo Soleri. Soleri, an
Italian architect, named his dream community in Arizona “Arcosanti.”
Arcosanti was built based on his vision of the fusion of architecture and
ecology, which he called
Arcology
(1969). Soleri began to build Arcosanti in
1970 (and it is still slowly being built more than four decades later, funded
through the sales of bells and visits to the site).
18
“Ecotopian” ideas have
changed dramatically in contemporary life, but they still retain some shreds
of connection to and infl uence of their countercultural roots in the Bay Area
and Arizona.
For instance, Smith describes the continuing impact of
Ecotopia
on con-
temporary ecological development, specifi cally in the Treasure Island Sus-
tainability Plan. h e Sustainability Plan was to build Treasure Island, in
Northern California's Bay Area, into the “greenest city in the United States”
(although the project ran into di' culties in early 2014).
19
In 2010, it became
part of a $1.7 billion proposed deal with China Development Corp., the Chi-
nese national railway and Lennar Corp. to construct 12,500 homes, both as
a string of high-rises on Treasure Island and as village developments at the
former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco. h e Chinese intended
to use the project as an entry into more development deals in the United
States. Smith does note the major diff erences, principally the big money
involved.
20
Callenbach's ecotopia was small-scale, sexually free, critical of
science and modernity, and skeptical of capitalism. Small-scale economies
and countercultural practices, not corporate capitalism, were seen as the
answer to the problems of environmental destruction.
Despite the symbolic and historiographical links between eco-cities and
ecotopias, contemporary eco-city builders eschew them. Dongtan's project
head at Arup, Roger Wood, rejected the utopian label: “
Utopianism
is too
