Yes, I do live in a high density city, San Francisco, and before that I lived in NYC for 2 years.
Manhattan is absolutely not dense enough for me. It has like a couple small areas, with 40 story buildings.
The skyscrapers are not high enough for me.
Here is how things should work. We should pick a single 1 mile square area, and in this area there are zero building height limits. Every single building in this area should be 50 stories tall or higher.
And then we should leave the surrounding area, hundreds of square miles, for the low density people to live in.
Yes, high density buildings are more expensive. But the actual cost of building the building is a small percentage of the total cost of living in an area. The REAL cost is caused by artifical land supply constraints.
You want lower density? Don't want to live in the very small, designated 50 story building area? Great! You can live in the 99% of the US landmass that is low density.
Us people who disagree, and and prefer higher density living should get at least freaking 1% of the land to do what we want with!
Since you've lived in Manhattan, have you since been following the serious infrastructure issues that have been affecting the subway system here?
Have you had a chance to see the effects on massive, quick development on specifically the mass transit system in Brooklyn (downtown Brooklyn, in particular)?
Look, I'm not saying there shouldn't be density. I'm just trying to point a finger at other elements that should be thought about other than tall buildings. I don't have kids, so I won't even get started on the downstream effects density has on school crowdedness, choices and desirability of areas.
The left hand doesn't talk to the right hand in the vast bureaucracy that is NYC. If development and rezoning were done with consideration for long-term downstream factors, I wouldn't have needed to write these comments.
Manhattan is absolutely not dense enough for me. It has like a couple small areas, with 40 story buildings.
The skyscrapers are not high enough for me.
Here is how things should work. We should pick a single 1 mile square area, and in this area there are zero building height limits. Every single building in this area should be 50 stories tall or higher.
And then we should leave the surrounding area, hundreds of square miles, for the low density people to live in.
Yes, high density buildings are more expensive. But the actual cost of building the building is a small percentage of the total cost of living in an area. The REAL cost is caused by artifical land supply constraints.
You want lower density? Don't want to live in the very small, designated 50 story building area? Great! You can live in the 99% of the US landmass that is low density.
Us people who disagree, and and prefer higher density living should get at least freaking 1% of the land to do what we want with!