It's very difficult to escape when the giant spider attacks it.

My sister lives in one in KL, and describes it as an arcology - and I’ve gotta say, it’s super convenient to not need to leave the building to go grocery shopping, or for pretty much any of the day-to-day services you might need. It’s like a 5 minute city, never mind 15 minute.

And no, residents are not imprisoned.

notably that corner of the world, especially singapore, in some ways is opposite to murica's personal independence attitude. more of a "you will own nothing and you will be happy" e.g. everything including cooking is outsourced, and all good quality. So they are happy to learn very few things except one specialized skill and outsource the rest. This sort of urban collectivism runs contrary to the american self-starter rural origins.

Other than the geometry of high density living, the mall and shared facilities at the base isn’t that odd. If you drive to a strip mall to go to a gym or you go to a pool or country club run by your HOA it’s the same thing but with added driving.

The moment you get in a private passenger vehicle, it’s not the same thing at all.

You’re a private person in the car but you’re back in public at the mall or a business, unless you’re suggesting that people have gyms and grocery stores in their cars.

No, again, if you are having to drive somewhere rather than walk somewhere, it is not the same thing.

I understand that Americans see driving and walking as pretty much the same thing, or walking as something undesirable and to be avoided at all costs, but that’s literally just in your small corner of the world.

My original comment is not meant to compare driving vs not driving. It is instead meant to contrast with the assertion that most modern Americans in 2024 have anything to do with the self-starting pioneer mindset of yore vs “collective urbanism.”

Please reread the whole thread.

I don't think it's exactly the same. Generally I hate malls because they overload my sensors with all blinking and colorful stuff, food and perfume smells, mixed different music, background noise, harder navigation because designers wanna show off rather than make it practical.

I'm right now living in those arcology and mostly only use grocery store and sometimes restaurants - but access to mall is still convenient. And better outdoor social area is just on the other side of street with 5 min walk.

However I do use a lot of residential shared cowork place, playground, gym and swimming pool. For swimming pool or gym you don't have to prepare how to dress properly before driving car - you can spontaneously early in the morning take few meters to lift and go there in your swimming or gym clothes. You don't have to worry only about driving but parking, paying for parking, that you forgot to pack some gym or swimming clothes. Undressing and locking everything in the locker - you just take a lift back and shower at your place (if you don't want to use showers in facilities)

There is also much more natural light in shared facilities floor because those residential buildings are towers so they have a lot of area on the edge where the windows are.

Maybe this is a cultural difference, but it is perfectly acceptable in the US to wear swim or gym clothes on the way to your destination, so this is a non-factor. You’d wear a shirt with your swim clothes, so you’d need a bag, but you most likely need one anyways if you are carrying a phone, wearing shoes, etc.

”harder navigation because designers wanna show off rather than make it practical.”

Not so at all. Malls are intentionally designed to be hard to navigate, so customers get disoriented, are forced to spend more time there and succumb to impulse buys. Search for ”Gruen Transfer” to learn more.

> This sort of urban collectivism runs contrary to the american self-starter rural origins.

Cultures are different, so it is a bold assumption that a solution that works for one culture also works for another, different one.

I very much want to live in an arcology

There's always been a push/astroturfing online towards dense housing against americans because they know sparse populations are harder to control.

Is it so hard to imagine that some people actually like dense housing and don’t want to be a slave to the car?

No it's not, I like to live in dense housing myself.

Wait, by whom? The FBI? The CIA?

Sign me up, I want to get paid by the CIA's urbanist YIMBY astroturf project, right now I'm just posting for free like a sucker.