[aasasd]

> High rise living takes people away from the ground and away from the casual, everyday society that occurs on the sidewalks and streets and on the grounds and porches.

This is a widespread notion among modern ‘hipster urbanists’—e.g. in Russia where Le Corbusier's dreams pretty much came true, in terms of external shape, and buildings get higher and higher since the 60s.

You need to consider not only the floor-space, but also sunlight. To not have ground floors in eternal darkness, high buildings need to have lots of empty space between them. So as a result, you're sitting in an apartment with a view on either a street road or a huge field inside a city block—perhaps with a school or/and a kindergarten, sports court or two, maybe a playground, and some people traversing this landscape. Any sense of closeness is kept inside, there's little of it outdoors. And since the few thousand people in each block need the same things, you basically have no reason to come down other than to walk with your kids on that playground or go to the barber—it's not like you'll see much difference across the road. It's truly residential housing, ‘districts for sleeping’ as they're called.

It can be argued that more places-to-be would be there, if there were paying demand. However I'm yet to see any of that even in newly-built districts, in a not-so-cheap city.