Self Contained Cities

The term was coined in 1969 by architect Paolo Soleri, who believed that a completed archaeology would provide space for a variety of residential and commercial while minimizing individual human environmental impact. These structures have been largely hypothetical, as no archaeology, even one envisioned by Soleri himself, has yet been built.

The concept has been popularized by various science fiction writers. Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle provided a detailed description of an arcology in their 1981 novel Oath of Fealty. More recently authors such as Peter Hamilton in Neutronium Alchemist and Paolo Bacigalupi in The Water Knife explicitly used arcologies as part of their scenarios. They are often portrayed as self-contained or economically self-sufficient.