All new skyscrapers will come only in high-growth places, not high-wealth places. IMHO that's because high-wealth places will settle down to generalized universal veto and stagnation. High-growth places haven't yet had a chance for established players to stall everything.
The reason why we won't have NYC or SF looking like Star Trek¹ is that the people are already wealthy and they chose to live here in the way it is so the people who would want Star Trek SF won't come to present-day SF to make it into Star Trek SF. Star Trek SF may be some unassuming town in America or (more likely) one of the emerging economies: maybe East Asia, but maybe if African nations capture their demographic dividend (unlikely IMHO) maybe them.
¹ I will have someone LongBets this on my behalf if someone wants to take the other side. San Francisco will never be like Star Trek's hyper-developed San Francisco. Willing to nail down specifics too.
EDIT: Maybe I should make an exception for high-wealth places with dictators/monarchs. There they can bypass any normal human process.
EDIT 2: No bets. Bets are off. Looks like I'd just lose money on this one because of NYC.
> The reason why we won't have NYC or SF looking like Star Trek¹ is that the people are already wealthy and they chose to live here in the way it is so the people who would want Star Trek SF won't come to present-day SF to make it into Star Trek SF
I'm not so sure about this -- the people who've moved to SF in the last 10 years have absolutely changed SF, and did not move to SF because they liked the way it is; they moved here because of work.
I think we see a slowdown in creating of "iconic" buildings in the US because of reasons like this - not just NIMBYism but because there's less need to replace stuff that's already built - but I think you overlook a couple things (in addition to the ongoing construction in NY discussed below):
1) A lot of what makes up Manhattan or SF today won't last forever. Cramming new stuff in is hitting points of diminishing returns. But as those buildings get more and more aged and/or obsolete, there's gonna be a higher need that doesn't exist today.
2) The Star Trek time frame is really long! NIMBY's a hundred or two hundred years from now will probably have very different tolerances for what they'd be willing to see created.
> All new skyscrapers will come only in high-growth places, not high-wealth places. IMHO that's because high-wealth places will settle down to generalized universal veto and stagnation.
How would we reconcile that prediction with Billionaires Row in Manhattan that was a high-wealth place but not a high-growth place that has built a number of residential skyscrapers recently. What's changed from the example that disproves your hypothesis to the near future?
That's a bad bet to take, if only because of black swan events. If an earthquake or something decimates SF, it'll have a much higher chance of being rebuilt differently.
This has to be the most tortured definition of a histogram: "Now imagine that you were a giant and could “harvest” all the world’ skyscrapers and put them into a jumbo pile—like a child might make a pile of sticks of various lengths. Now in our little game, we pick up each skyscraper (stick) and measure its height. Then we place it in one of several bins or buckets. The first bucket will contain buildings that range from 150 to 199 meters. The second contains buildings 200 to 248 and so on. The last bucket ranges from 788 to 836 meters, and which contains the Burj Khalifa at 0.828 km tall."
Im curious to know why this would be downvoted. Everyone has spent the last 6 months talking about the end of offices and “work from home”. Can someone elaborate?
Vegas isn't mentioned anywhere in the article (which focuses on NYC) but it seems particularly relevant. Why do I suspect that, had more effort gone into computing the "economic height" of some Vegas hotels and condos, they would have been built smaller -- or not all all (Fontainebleu/The Drew, I'm looking at you. Resorts World is in this bucket, too.)
My apartment building has ~50 residential floors (each floor holding ~7 units) and 4 elevators. Each elevator is sufficiently large enough to let two unrelated groups be in the elevator while maintaining 6 feet.
Something like 60% of the time I'm by myself and 20% of the time I can maintain reasonable distance. Furthermore, <1 minute of exposure is unlikely to spread covid.
I think much of the "popular belief" against skyscrapers is unknowingly influenced by reactionary thinkers of the 20th century's second half.
The shrillest thinking but/thus the most influential is this moronic idea of phallus symbols. According to which, they are a power tool for the patriachy, which albeit being so powerful the patriachy is simoultaniously so immature that it can't refrain from playing with its genitalia in public.
The fact that this phallus idiocy is virtually non-rebuked in academia and still considered established, tells you about the influence on popular belief the reactionaries have had.
On the contrary, skyscrapers are a sign of a culture's virtousness. Which is why dictators (and also immature policy makers [1]) throughout modern history try to emulate the skylines of these cities [2], but never achieve it [3]. Their artificial skylines either look like an experiment gone bad [4, 5], consist of only a few (one) tall buildings [6] or are confined to some "new business district" on the outskirts of their capital [7, 8].
There are other moronic reactionary, influential, ideas like the one of "clouding" ("Verschattung"), according to which because of skyscrapers we're either dying from Vitamin D deficiency or because of sadness because we can't see our monuments anymore.
This is ignoring the fact that a 2 story building is already enough to cast a shadow upon you, thus in most old towns you were already unable to see any landmarks and already were "clouded" (in warmer areas even intentionally).
On the contrary, while most skyscrapers will look functional, many achieve a democratization of identity, in that they enable more people see their city's icons.
If humans are to minimize impact on the rest of the ecosystem I don't see how that is compatible with NO SKYCRAPERS. In long run I think it will make sense both economically and in reducing human footprint on earth[0].
Making high density living bearable and even desirable that's the art we need (and millenia of urbanization has been about) to master.
[0] I'm aware that dense cities are not automatically more sustainable. But I suspect is easier to achieve sustainability due to proximity.
I think you're right and it's also important to note that high density cities do not necessarily have to be cities full of skyscrapers. Old cities with narrow streets between short buildings can be very dense. American cities tend to put huge 4+ lane roads everywhere, and require setbacks on buildings, and this has a big impact on density and the distance you have to walk to get anywhere, but if you are accustomed to that, you hardly notice it. It's possible to build sustainable density on the "human scale".
>Making high density living bearable and even desirable that's the art we need
I think a lot of this could be solved with a couple of improvements to building codes:
1) require far stronger noise dampening, equivalent to that of detached homes. That is, regular day-to-day life should not register at all - including e.g. watching a movie with the sound system turned up (including bass). There should also be almost no tolerance for vertically travelling noise, you should be able to stomp around or drag furniture without disturbing your downstairs neighbour.
2) Force arrangement of shared interior walls such that your bedroom will never be adjacent to the neighbours living room, so that if noise does leak through it should not be able to disturb anyone's sleep. This should also affect the routing of water pipes and such, so that water flow and pipe knocking does not intrude.
3) The above points should be enforced by random sample testing of some proportion (somewhere in the range of 15-30%) of the buildings apartments before it is certified for occupancy. As in, testers would randomly select two adjacent apartments, set up loud music in one and measure the noise bleed-through in the other to see if it's within tolerances.
Basically, there will always be a subset of the population of a high density building who are selfish jackasses. Construction should be changed to reflect the fact that people are unreasonable and compensate for it, instead of turning it into an externality e.g. making everyone install carpets in their apartments to reduce floor noise. I don't want to be aware of my neighbours existence outside of seeing them in shared hallways.
I'm aware that dense cities are not automatically more sustainable.
Seems like you're under-selling density here.
A dense city may not be automatically sustainable but it seems logical that denseness would be necessary to create a much more sustainable city than today.
Oppositely, there is degree of sprawl is almost automatically unsustainable, in ecological and economic terms.
Many places are fine with 3-5 story buildings and row houses for those who insist on single family housing (nothing wrong with that). From what I have heard about SF and the bay area it's mostly detached single family units with very large lot sizes.
I understand the benefits of single family units and a private outdoor space but I feel like there are diminishing returns. It's probably possible to retain more than 75% the value of a single family unit while doubling density.
The ecological problem with skyscrapers is that they're inherently energy-intensive. If you live in the 5th floor you can either walk the entire thing (which is still reasonable-ish), or take a lift 5 floors down and another 5 back up.
If you live on the 50th floor, you have to travel a total of 100 floors every day. You're taking the lift, and taking 10x the energy to do so. Also, IIRC skyscrapers need machine-powered air ventilation which also takes power.
Of course, the real killer might be the embodied energy - a 1-story flat can have a lot less embodied energy than an equivalent-sized 100-story skyscraper, simply because you can build the flat out of low-embodied-energy mud brick, whereas the skyscraper is necessarily high-strength steel with reinforced concrete anchoring underground.
*
But I think we're getting tunnel-vision. This is a social problem, perhaps it has a social solution.
The important question here is: why are some plots of land so much more valuable to live on, than others?
Perhaps if instead of spending money on building more skyscrapers, we instead spent it on decentralising, more people would be able to live in bumfuck-nowhere and that would reduce demand for existing skyscrapers without a ton of energy-expensive construction. There are plenty of rapidly emptying small towns around, after all.
IMO silicon valley is public enemy #1 here - surely the IT industry is more suited to remote working and doesn't need some of the (AFAICT) most expensive housing in the entire US. That really suggests to me that there's a ripe juicy social problem that would dribble out a ton of benefits when bitten into.
[+] [-] renewiltord|5 years ago|reply
The reason why we won't have NYC or SF looking like Star Trek¹ is that the people are already wealthy and they chose to live here in the way it is so the people who would want Star Trek SF won't come to present-day SF to make it into Star Trek SF. Star Trek SF may be some unassuming town in America or (more likely) one of the emerging economies: maybe East Asia, but maybe if African nations capture their demographic dividend (unlikely IMHO) maybe them.
¹ I will have someone LongBets this on my behalf if someone wants to take the other side. San Francisco will never be like Star Trek's hyper-developed San Francisco. Willing to nail down specifics too.
EDIT: Maybe I should make an exception for high-wealth places with dictators/monarchs. There they can bypass any normal human process.
EDIT 2: No bets. Bets are off. Looks like I'd just lose money on this one because of NYC.
[+] [-] zamfi|5 years ago|reply
I'm not so sure about this -- the people who've moved to SF in the last 10 years have absolutely changed SF, and did not move to SF because they liked the way it is; they moved here because of work.
[+] [-] majormajor|5 years ago|reply
1) A lot of what makes up Manhattan or SF today won't last forever. Cramming new stuff in is hitting points of diminishing returns. But as those buildings get more and more aged and/or obsolete, there's gonna be a higher need that doesn't exist today.
2) The Star Trek time frame is really long! NIMBY's a hundred or two hundred years from now will probably have very different tolerances for what they'd be willing to see created.
[+] [-] viscanti|5 years ago|reply
How would we reconcile that prediction with Billionaires Row in Manhattan that was a high-wealth place but not a high-growth place that has built a number of residential skyscrapers recently. What's changed from the example that disproves your hypothesis to the near future?
[+] [-] jychang|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pvg|5 years ago|reply
Isn't the more accurate way of saying this 'My argument is wrong'?
[+] [-] andrewem|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jariel|5 years ago|reply
It may not have 'ultra high' buildings, but those exist for different reasons and the economics are different.
SF has earthquakes and a shifty foundation which is material.
[+] [-] jackdaw12|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] siculars|5 years ago|reply
See Pinterest paying $100mm to break their lease in a new development in SF.
See AOC limiting new AMZN business, major banks distributing their work force in NYC.
[+] [-] sthnblllII|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mimixco|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] natcombs|5 years ago|reply
I doubt there is a popular belief that says "tall skyscrapers do not have an economic rational". Really weird starting point to make this article
[+] [-] jpxw|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amadeuspagel|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SilasX|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Havoc|5 years ago|reply
>How are you going to get elevators up beyond 5 floors and social distance?
[+] [-] joe_the_user|5 years ago|reply
Btw, there are reasonable arguments that density was not the primary driving factor for Covid in NYC.
see: https://chpcny.org/density-and-covid-19/
[+] [-] kevindong|5 years ago|reply
Something like 60% of the time I'm by myself and 20% of the time I can maintain reasonable distance. Furthermore, <1 minute of exposure is unlikely to spread covid.
[+] [-] renewiltord|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] woodpanel|5 years ago|reply
The shrillest thinking but/thus the most influential is this moronic idea of phallus symbols. According to which, they are a power tool for the patriachy, which albeit being so powerful the patriachy is simoultaniously so immature that it can't refrain from playing with its genitalia in public.
The fact that this phallus idiocy is virtually non-rebuked in academia and still considered established, tells you about the influence on popular belief the reactionaries have had.
On the contrary, skyscrapers are a sign of a culture's virtousness. Which is why dictators (and also immature policy makers [1]) throughout modern history try to emulate the skylines of these cities [2], but never achieve it [3]. Their artificial skylines either look like an experiment gone bad [4, 5], consist of only a few (one) tall buildings [6] or are confined to some "new business district" on the outskirts of their capital [7, 8].
There are other moronic reactionary, influential, ideas like the one of "clouding" ("Verschattung"), according to which because of skyscrapers we're either dying from Vitamin D deficiency or because of sadness because we can't see our monuments anymore. This is ignoring the fact that a 2 story building is already enough to cast a shadow upon you, thus in most old towns you were already unable to see any landmarks and already were "clouded" (in warmer areas even intentionally).
On the contrary, while most skyscrapers will look functional, many achieve a democratization of identity, in that they enable more people see their city's icons.
[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikingturm
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sisters_(Moscow)
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryugyong_Hotel
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_Pearl_Tower
[5] http://www.globalpostmark.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/201...
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabemba_Tower
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_City_(businnes_center)
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nur-Sultan
[+] [-] 082349872349872|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 627467|5 years ago|reply
Making high density living bearable and even desirable that's the art we need (and millenia of urbanization has been about) to master.
[0] I'm aware that dense cities are not automatically more sustainable. But I suspect is easier to achieve sustainability due to proximity.
[+] [-] farnsworth|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] waste_monk|5 years ago|reply
I think a lot of this could be solved with a couple of improvements to building codes:
1) require far stronger noise dampening, equivalent to that of detached homes. That is, regular day-to-day life should not register at all - including e.g. watching a movie with the sound system turned up (including bass). There should also be almost no tolerance for vertically travelling noise, you should be able to stomp around or drag furniture without disturbing your downstairs neighbour.
2) Force arrangement of shared interior walls such that your bedroom will never be adjacent to the neighbours living room, so that if noise does leak through it should not be able to disturb anyone's sleep. This should also affect the routing of water pipes and such, so that water flow and pipe knocking does not intrude.
3) The above points should be enforced by random sample testing of some proportion (somewhere in the range of 15-30%) of the buildings apartments before it is certified for occupancy. As in, testers would randomly select two adjacent apartments, set up loud music in one and measure the noise bleed-through in the other to see if it's within tolerances.
Basically, there will always be a subset of the population of a high density building who are selfish jackasses. Construction should be changed to reflect the fact that people are unreasonable and compensate for it, instead of turning it into an externality e.g. making everyone install carpets in their apartments to reduce floor noise. I don't want to be aware of my neighbours existence outside of seeing them in shared hallways.
[+] [-] joe_the_user|5 years ago|reply
Seems like you're under-selling density here.
A dense city may not be automatically sustainable but it seems logical that denseness would be necessary to create a much more sustainable city than today.
Oppositely, there is degree of sprawl is almost automatically unsustainable, in ecological and economic terms.
[+] [-] imtringued|5 years ago|reply
I understand the benefits of single family units and a private outdoor space but I feel like there are diminishing returns. It's probably possible to retain more than 75% the value of a single family unit while doubling density.
[+] [-] Qwertious|5 years ago|reply
If you live on the 50th floor, you have to travel a total of 100 floors every day. You're taking the lift, and taking 10x the energy to do so. Also, IIRC skyscrapers need machine-powered air ventilation which also takes power.
Of course, the real killer might be the embodied energy - a 1-story flat can have a lot less embodied energy than an equivalent-sized 100-story skyscraper, simply because you can build the flat out of low-embodied-energy mud brick, whereas the skyscraper is necessarily high-strength steel with reinforced concrete anchoring underground.
*
But I think we're getting tunnel-vision. This is a social problem, perhaps it has a social solution.
The important question here is: why are some plots of land so much more valuable to live on, than others?
Perhaps if instead of spending money on building more skyscrapers, we instead spent it on decentralising, more people would be able to live in bumfuck-nowhere and that would reduce demand for existing skyscrapers without a ton of energy-expensive construction. There are plenty of rapidly emptying small towns around, after all.
IMO silicon valley is public enemy #1 here - surely the IT industry is more suited to remote working and doesn't need some of the (AFAICT) most expensive housing in the entire US. That really suggests to me that there's a ripe juicy social problem that would dribble out a ton of benefits when bitten into.
[+] [-] PostThisTooFast|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]