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cchurch | 13 years ago

I disagree about the lack of space. If anything, it makes more economic sense to build a wider, shorter building in the expanding suburbs and exurbs.

This is why the US has so much sprawl.

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astrodust|13 years ago

Wider, flatter buildings have enormous infrastructure costs, especially with the typical layout with a large building surrounded by an even larger parking lot.

Spreading things out means sewer lines have to be longer, power lines need to go further, and more roads have to be built and maintained to get to these new destinations. Then there's the phenomenon of the more roads you have, the more roads you have to build to get around those roads since they take up so much space themselves, further complicating things.

It doesn't make economic sense on the whole, only from the perspective of a developer that doesn't have to build and maintain infrastructure. The carrying costs are borne by other parties.