I'm a Tucson resident, and I was at Biosphere 2 just this December, where I did not see the stated "semi-derelict" state.

What I do note is a photographer's trip that started with an intent to document something (suburban expansion) in a negative light, end up being a diatribe on an only tangentially related structure, documented with carefully selected but not altogether representative images, based on an outdated understand of the structure's current condition and role.

The site was a ranch, then a conference center, before the B2 project was ever conceived. B2 has never been "in the middle of nowhere"; it's always been within 30 miles of Tucson. Perhaps you might want to adjust your 19th-century standards of distance.

The site has not been in any way abandoned. Currently the University of Arizona holds a 3-year lease on the property and manages it as a research facility.

The "fertile promise of the microcosm" as you so hyperbolically put it, was nothing more than an experiment, one which failed chiefly due to human factors, although it did show that the promise was not so fertile after all. The botanical experiments currently in progress now will probably ultimately prove to be of much more value to humanity.

I don't mean to sound like a B2 cheerleader; I just find it to be an interesting place which this piece does not represent properly. Might I suggest you (the writer) take a trip down here sometime to check my assertions?