The books do indeed give exceptionally gentle treatment to anarchists, technosocialists, and extropians. Likewise, they treat capitalists and conservatives very harshly (unless, in the case of the former, they're super-libertarians). Generally speaking, when examining any section of any of the books, think "Why would anyone agree to this?" and expand on that. On the topic of Locus, a place to begin whenever discussing anarchist settlements is to point to the largest example of anarchist settlements of the modern day; Kowloon Walled City. The general sensation of life in any anarchist habitat is probably similar to Kowloon; life is difficult and unpleasant in many ways, but you're alive, and you can get away with doing things you couldn't elsewhere. Unfortunately, this is true of anyone and everyone. Something that's going to separate an anarchist hab from any other is how slapdash it feels. Anarchist habs rely on the gumption and action of the charismatic leader(s) who can form a group work effort. That means that the quality of maintenance and cleanliness is going to vary immensely from spar to spar. Some are going to be frigid places that might as well be vacuum for all the quality their air has, with frequent accidents and malfunctions. Others will be places that, while idiosyncratic, demonstrate a clear pride in one's work and acumen. Of the two, the former will be significantly more common than the latter. Notably, idiosyncrasy's going to be another big part of this. Since charismatic leadership is a big part of all this, whomever is responsible for it will do it their way. If you've ever done scripting, you know what this is like; scripts for your personal use can easily become tangled webs of "Fuck it, it works", with no commenting. If an anarchist hab loses an important engineer for one reason or another, a previously high quality segment of its systems may suddenly become near-unusable as their replacement struggles to find their way through years of compromises and personally gratifying optimization. That's just a few thoughts. Anarchist habs are going to be a mess, always, even when they're at their best.