Miniaturization is to Soleri an assumption of reality based an observation of natural or cosmic laws. A higher level of complexity achieved within a smaller, more compressed space--MCD "hypothesis"--is a part of an evolutionary process of humanity and the universe. The basis for Arcology is that miniaturization and complexity are part of what drives nature to evolve.
Soleri’s view of the world was heavily influenced by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Neither use the word meme in their writing but many thinkers feel there is a fit between de Chardin’s Noosesphere, Soleri’s urban effect and Richard Dawkins’ meme producing Selfish Gene.
Nigel Calder says that de Chardin writing The Future of Man saw “cosmic evolution as a process for transforming matter into spirit, for minimizing material needs while heightening the role of consciousness (Nigel Calder Spaceships of the Mind P121)." Soleri took this vision and applied it to the city—urban effect. And Dawkins postulated the premise for the struggle for the control of meme between the selfish gene (the most basic and primal form of conservatism) and the expanding human cultural consciousness (which most of the progressive movement still seems attached to).