[test1235]

>Expecting a city skyline to never change is ridiculous

"In Athens, buildings are not allowed to surpass 12 floors so as not to block the view toward the Parthenon."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_A...

I'd say this isn't typical of most of the world, but it's not unprecedented.

[maccard]

I live in Edinburgh, and we have "key views" (example of the centre ones here https://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/downloads/download/13259/key-vi... - there's 5 or 6 pages but no link to them all) there's dozens of the views in the city, and no planning will be granted that materially changes the skyline in the views!

[wolverine876]

It also constrains supply of real estate, driving up the value for property owners.

[tarsinge]

12 floors is huge. Nearly every building in Paris is 6 floors and it is already at near the maximum density humanly acceptable in my opinion. There will never be enough supply in some place, especially with speculation and foreign investors. The situation in NYC and these cities is nothing like SF.

[BelenusMordred]

> 12 floors is huge.

I live 40 stories up, surrounded by a lot of green spaces because the city doesn't need to mow down natural habitats for population growth. 6 floors seems quaint and archaic, all it's going to cause is endless depressing urban sprawl.

> There will never be enough supply in some place

We can always build higher, construction techniques are only getting better. I don't see why 60 floor buildings can't be a norm in most supply constrained cities.

[bobthepanda]

The main constraint on taller buildings is elevators. The taller a building is, the more elevators it needs, and the more elevator shafts there are the lower the percentage of square footage available for other, paying uses.

The sweet spot for residential in Hong Kong is about 30-40 stories.

[biztos]

I’m also on 40 (out of 76) and while we’ll probably all die if there’s an earthquake, that’s true in a lot of NIMBYtowns too.

I could see whole cities of mostly >50 stories, but then unblockable views start to get immensely valuable right?

So as the city fills up and you discover which locations have more durable views, you need to start tearing down those skyscrapers to replace them with more luxurious ones.

Not sure if that’s dystopian, but I do quite like the view from up here.

[tarsinge]

> We can always build higher, construction techniques are only getting better. I don't see why 60 floor buildings can't be a norm in most supply constrained cities.

Because there is no way we can make infrastructure follow in the short term. Public transports are already saturated here, we could remove cars, but there is still a limit in how many people can be on the ground in streets, parcs, shops...

[bluefirebrand]

I find appropriately planned urban sprawl a whole lot less depressing than living in a cube 40 stories up.

Different strokes I guess.

[stjohnswarts]

I think some people won't be happy until we're all constrained to 10x10x8' rooms in 80 story buildings to satiate their desire for density and efficiency. Maybe we should just kind of be happy with 7 billion people.

[carpedimebagjoe]

Lolwut. Who? Ne'er-do-wells, haters, or rent-seeking bastards?

(I'm in a 1400 sq ft / 130 m^2 2/2 apt in ATX.)

[wolverine876]

Perhaps people like living in smaller quarters in cities - the market seems to indicate that, based on the price per square foot people are willing to pay for urban apartments compared with ... anyplace else in the world.

[carpedimebagjoe]

Urban sprawl is awful if there's only single-occupant vehicles, bad roads, and no reliable public transport anyone wants to use ... basically, you get Los Angeles. Terrible, crime-ridden, and horizontally dystopian.

[bluefirebrand]

As opposed to urban densification where everyone lives in the sky and the city is crowded, polluted, noisy, crime ridden and dystopian?

[bobthepanda]

The average square footage of a Parisian studio would make NY’s tenements look downright palatial.

The average NYC studio is 50 m^2. The larger end for a Parisian studio is given to be 35 m^2.

[PoignardAzur]

On the other hand, there's nothing forcing you to live in intra-muros Paris.

I live in Nanterre, 5min away from the RER station, and my rent is 1200€/month for a 2-bedrooms apartment (50 m²). I have a <1h commute for about anywhere in Paris, and <20min for La Défense.

Point is, you can have affordable-ish rents in a business center without building humongous high-rises everywhere, as long as your public transport network can support it.

[bobthepanda]

I don't know that sprawling density taking up land that could be used for nature is somehow supposed to be better than tall buildings.

[mattmanser]

Yes there is, circumstances.

There's nothing forcing you maybe, but plenty of people will be stuck there because of circumstances.

[carpedimebagjoe]

Hmm... I should turn my ATX apt into 4 "Parisian" studios then. Such underutilized space considering I have an almost vestigial "dining room" that has been used mostly as a dance floor and a gym area.

[bobthepanda]

In practice, most American jurisdictions will not let one legally subdivide a living area into chunks as small as a Parisian studio. NYC regulations on how small you can subdivide are probably as generous as they get.

In the Parisian example, it is legal to have an apartment without an in-unit bathroom, and this is straight up illegal in virtually every American city. A list of requirements for NYC (not exhaustive): https://www.renthop.com/qa/nyc/what-makes-an-apartment-illeg...

[carpedimebagjoe]

/s woosh. LOL. ;-)

It's called tenement housing, in any case. Split the living room in half and rent the large walk-in closet, now a 2 bedroom is magically a 5 bedroom like an airline employee crashpad. :)

Some friends of mine were thinking about renting out an entire warehouse and constructing illegal residential tenement "apartments" in them.

[carpedimebagjoe]

12 floors is tiny if you're not used to it.

There's only ~75 buildings in Paris >6 floors because of the 37m height limit.

Cities either have to have faster transportation, build underground, build higher, or build out farther. Increasing costs by keeping transportation horrible or limiting supply for the rich squeezes money from the lowers and the middle classes.

Very fast transport from nearby satellite communities would be the most ideal solution because then locality doesn't matter as much to most people.

[baud147258]

though for Paris, I think it's mandated by the local law, no?

Regarding Paris, at the current density, maybe it would be better to have higher building but with a smaller ground footprint (not sure if it's the right term), to leave space free for more parks?

[searchableguy]

China has done the same recently. They are moving away from skyscrapers. Strict regulation for buildings taller than 250m. No approval for buildings taller than 500m.

https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3115225/...

[Jabbles]

That's not really the same thing as Athens at all. 250m is ~60 floors.

[searchableguy]

I was pointing to the trend of curbing down on skyscrappers instead of a direct comparison.

250m is the limit for strict regulation. Newer buildings tend to be around 100m.

[bobthepanda]

The article is paywalled for me.

I would imagine that has more to do with curbing local officials’ habits of encouraging land speculation to plump up their budgets. The central government is trying to have its cake and eat it too when it comes to property that needs to rise in value to boost wealth but also not become totally unaffordable for first time buyers, and overheating the market doesn’t help with the latter.

[chrischen]

I guess they peaked in 447 BC.

[gelert]

This is also a thing in London where certain views towards St Pauls Cathedral are protected.

[cm2187]

London isn't exactly a model of urban planning. There is a massive shortage of housing. And you end up with all new developments concentrated in a handful of areas.

[wayanon]

I agree but if 100,000 homes became available tomorrow in London they’d sell in an instant. I don’t think any number will solve it - the problem is existing homes not being lived in and being used as income.

[iso1210]

How many homes in London are empty? Numbers I see are in the region of 25,000, out of 3.6 million, under 1%.

[bmilleare]

It would be more interesting to see those numbers in square footage and not straight counts. I would expect the majority of the 'empty' homes are the £10M+ ones in Knightsbridge, Chelsea, Kensington etc.

[iso1210]

Offices and hotels far more empty square footage

[dionidium]

There is no evidence that this is a significant issue affecting housing prices in high-demand metros. Lack of supply is a much more straightforward and verifiable explanation. The spooky-outside-investor meme is conspiratorial nonsense and it’s beneath this forum.

[carpedimebagjoe]

Sorry, but you're spouting nonsense without knowing the facts.

In the US alone, there are over 17 million vacant residential properties. Average un-occupancy rates for urban areas run 10%. That is more than plenty to house every homeless and very poor person.

There ought to be massive taxes on urban vacation, vacant housing, and entirely airbnb properties to encourage utilization by those who require housing rather than being hoarded/exploited by those who use them for recreational/investment purposes.

[dionidium]

Unfortunately, like everybody involved in the housing space, I’ve of course heard this claim about millions of vacant homes many times.

It’s a notoriously silly take.

Most vacant homes covered by that statistic are either 1) uninhabitable shells in low-demand rust-belt metros; or 2) houses that are for sale or between tenants. A small percentage of them are second homes. And while you could of course raise taxes on those homes (a policy I’d probably support in some form), it’s unlikely that it’d have much of an impact on the overall problem.

[barry-cotter]

You could fit 59 Manhattans in the London Green Belt. Manhattan has 1.6 million residents. The problem is not building.

[carpedimebagjoe]

And iceberg mansions. The neighbors really love those.

[samizdis]

Not just towards St Paul's, but also to the Palace of Westminster. See the City of London's "Protected views and tall buildings" planning docs [1] and the section "Protected vistas in London" in the Wikipedia page Protected View [2].

Also, see the Wikipedia page on Greenwich Hospital, London [3]:

An early controversy arose when it emerged that the original plans for the hospital would have blocked the riverside view from the Queen's House. Queen Mary II therefore ordered that the buildings be split, providing an avenue leading from the river through the hospital grounds up to the Queen's House and Greenwich Hill beyond.

The resulting effect is displayed well in this contemporary pic:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Naval_College.JPG

[1] https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/services/planning/planning-p...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_view

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwich_Hospital,_London

[playpause]

The Guardian did an interesting interactive story a few years ago on how these 'viewing corridors' are affecting the skyline: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/dec/11/city-of...

[mysterydip]

The city of Charleston, SC has a set of height regulations: https://www.charleston-sc.gov/DocumentCenter/View/14414/Heig...