In 2015 I spent almost a week at Arcosanti volunteering for a small music festival. It was a really weird place and not in a bad way. However, while the descriptions paint it to be some grand experiment in architecture and urban living. In practice it's a lot of concrete domes and vaults with some living spaces tetris'ed together in the desert. They rent out the amphitheater and forge bells. The people I met who lived at Arcosanti were interesting to talk with but made it feel a little strange that all this was going on around what was essentially the residents' porches and common areas.

One of the volunteer coordinators I got to know had lived at Arcosanti herself and while she said the experience was nice (there's a stipend) she mentioned there were, and still are, serious management problems with the non-profit around it. I don't recall the specifics well enough to recount here but the outcome meant the place kind of stagnated and continues to. The visionaries who were there when it started are still there but lost their vision and are resistant to changing how things are done. An urban laboratory it is no more but has become a weird place to have lunch off I-17.