You should look at the works of Paolo Soleri, an architect who designed buildings to accommodate the living needs of up to hundreds of thousands of people. Despite their size, they have light and air throughout. Pretty remarkable.
They are making a slight comeback but as more of a leisure thing I think - somewhere nice/novel to go for a stroll on a sunny day, rather than when doing your morning power-walk from the tube/bus station to your office etc (e.g. New York high line type thing)