Arcosanti was to be different, a new page in urban design. It was to be located on top of a mesa; the most desolate part of the 860 acres that was to serve as a base for his city of the future development called Arcology.
Develop more desolate lands that were not prime or pristine natural/bio-diverse areas.
Develop only a very small portion of the land using his hyper dense Arcology principles of design, leave the vast majority of the land pristine and untouched.
Most land would be set aside as a preserve not to be used or used sparingly.
Cosanti Foundation has continued to uphold the original premise focusing the project in a hyperdense development called Arcosanti 5000 that when fully developed would occupy on 25 acres of the total 860. An example of the hyper-frugal use not just of land that Arcology represents.
Land Use is broken up into various key sections:
Soleri's Map of Despair
Arcosanti Land Use development strategies have focused on a vision of land conservation that is line with Soleri's ideology of Arcology. In City in the Image of Man Soleri the book published in 1970 by MIT Press that popularized Arcosanti and Arcology referred to a "Map of Despair."
The term book expressed a common sentiment about how the powerful think about nature. That they have a aggressive and arrogant "nature to be commanded" approach towards development and land use practices that have promoted gulping up of huge amounts of land as America rapidly sprawled out of its original settlements areas of the early 20th century. Lines of communications, roads, highways, fences, pipelines, powerlines, rail rapidly criss-crossed the country breaking up natural areas into smaller and smaller groupings.
The Arcology book and philosophy outlined an approach in which was particularly suited for the desert. It was also unlike how most cities had developed historically in river valleys and also Cosanti as well.