[tobico]

Good. Building up is the way to go. Here in Melbourne, >30-story apartment towers have become the norm, and it's succeeded in slowing the rise of housing prices in the inner city quite a bit. I also think it's helping to delay our transportation crisis.

[zik]

Melbourne's possibly a bad example. Instead of keeping housing prices down Melbourne has some of the highest housing costs in the world. The new apartments are poorly made and often don't even meet building regulations. The lack of social infrastructure such as shops etc. is so bad that it's cited worldwide as an example of how to do it wrong. And half of the apartments are empty, sold to overseas investors who bought them for capital increase and who have left them unoccupied.

Basically it's a complete planning disaster. Let's hope the Mountain View development is better planned than that.

[matt4711]

Too bad there are no minimum size restrictions and all apartments in those 30-story towers are essentially shoe boxes.

[prawn]

If people are buying them, then they're obviously OK with that trade-off.

[Tsagadai]

Many are bought without inspection and are not lived in. Some of the large apartment buildings in the north of the CBD and Docklands are largely empty while being completely sold.