[rayiner]

What a horrible hit piece by WaPo against the plan to raise the height limit. As if the taller buildings are going to be windowless slab-sided monoliths!

Height is beautiful: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3nsDtd8zatQ/S9382uGLh6I/AAAAAAAAAh...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v171/lugnuts/Bridges/IMG_5...

http://www.thewrigleybuilding.com/images/about-top.jpg

Also, the growth of D.C. is something I intensely dislike. It reminds me of Trantor in the Foundation series. It's all fueled by federal spending. The city has no finance industry, not a lot of technology besides defense contractors, no manufacturing, nothing that would justify the growth other than lots of highly-paid federal workers.

I'm actually a proponent of a robust federal government, but I hate the fact that it's concentrated in D.C. I think we need to spend money on say the SEC or the EPA, but we should push the work of these organizations down to local field offices, so the incidental benefits of federal jobs and contracts go back into the communities that pay the taxes to support them. Moreover, local siting makes federal offices much more sensitive to the local culture and concerns.

[kcorbitt]

I generally agree but there is the concern that the higher buildings would take away from the prominence of the historical monuments that the city centers on.

A good example of this is the Mormon temple in Salt Lake City. It appeared prominent and even formidable when it was built in the 18th century but modern construction has surrounded it on all sides and it's not even really part of the skyline anymore[1]. That's ok, but we have to decide whether the loss of emphasis on history is worth it.

[1] http://www.deseretnews.com/images/article/midres/315661/3156... (You can just see the six spires over an office building in the left-hand side of the frame).

[mkr-hn]

The only reason these short buildings are considered historic is that important things happened in them before we learned how to make rebar, and before we rediscovered concrete.

We can build tall buildings now. Some of those will become historic, if we build them. Many of them will be very nice-looking, like the new WTC towers. Don't let old building methods stand in the way of progress. I'm not one of those growth-at-all-costs people, but there's a lot of benefit in finding ways to put a large number of people in a small space comfortably.

[msutherl]

New building methods create ugly, uncomfortable, temporary environments. If you've ever lived in, say, Paris or New York, you may understand the feeling of living in the hollowed-out shell of a once-great city.

The Freedom Tower is incredibly boring, not to mention dated, and will have the oppressive atmosphere of any modern office space inside.

[culturestate]

I live in the most skyscraper-crazy city on earth - Hong Kong - and I can attest that if done properly and with care, building skyward doesn't have to lead to a dystopian Fifth Element-style future.

[mkr-hn]

This is very subjective. I live in the hollowed out shell of a once so-so city. I've also lived in a lively city with big buildings. I liked the latter much more.

[rayiner]

> I generally agree but there is the concern that the higher buildings would take away from the prominence of the historical monuments that the city centers on.

Most of the monuments are within 0.5 miles north or south of Constitution Ave, while the business district centers around K street a mile north of that. In fact, I think it would look quite amazing, the way Central Park does in Manhattan.

[knowaveragejoe]

How do you read this as a hit piece...? Nowhere that I saw do they even allude to the various proposals being bad ideas.

Also, DC has a decently sized tech community and industry, a lot of which is not related to the federal government. I'd venture to say it's the largest in the country after SF, NYC and Chicago.

[mdasen]

If you look at the photos, you can click the right arrow (or top buttons if not on a phone) to see what the neighborhood would look like with eased height restrictions: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/lifestyle/magaz.... Rather than photoshopping in nice buildings, they've put in windowless concrete slabs of uniform height. Sometimes the best way to get people to agree with your side isn't to argue for your side, but to "push-poll" people: do you like the way DC looks now or do you want massive concrete blocks with no windows dominating everything? In photo mockups, it comes off as subtle, but it can shape the opinions of many.

I'm not saying that's what the WaPo is trying to do. I think they just didn't put in the time to do a good job creating a hypothetical new DC with realistic buildings of varying heights. However, if you support increased heights for buildings, their mock-ups make something you consider positive look bad. I mean, I'd hate to live in a city with imposing concrete blocks with no windows. It would look like some dystopian future world. But the photos of what I think is Chicago that were linked to don't look oppressive and don't have uniformity of height - there's plenty of sky that you can see through the buildings since they aren't connected beige blobs. Now, one can still dislike tall buildings (they can change the nature of the area), but they wouldn't have the same oppressive feeling.

So, the mockups from WaPo look oppressive (on purpose or on accident) while proponents of eased height restrictions would insist that it would look a lot more like the Chicago photos than some concrete dystopia.

[rayiner]

Right. Chicago looks great because of the set back requirements. Buildings either have to be further back from the street, or taper as they rise. That lets plenty of sunlight to street level. The mockups are straight vertical additions onto buildings that extend right to the street.

[true_religion]

I didn't think it was a hit piece simply because they didn't get creative with their building design.

The purpose was to show that regardless of raised height, you'd still be able to see the US capitol, and the tall monuments/government buildings will remain as iconic as they are today in the skyline.

[uncr3ative]

it's also where the nih and nasa are located. I had 3 technical jobs there that had nothing to do with politics, and my 2 friends who live in the area work on technology things which have nothing to do with politics. Rent in DC is exorbitant and making demand higher by not allowing tall buildings seems silly to me.

[rayiner]

NIH and NASA get a Google's worth of funding from the federal government. With employees in DC, that funnels a ton of cash into the local economy. But why DC? It has no top medical school. Shouldn't NIH be in Baltimore near Hopkins? Why isn't NASA in a city with a university with a top aerospace program, or closer to aerospace equipment manufacturers?

[asveikau]

> The city has no finance industry

Right, because that gives a place substance...

[alexeisadeski3]

I wasn't aware that this was even supposed to be a hit piece. I kept scrolling down, increasing the building height limits, and always preferred the tallest variants with the largest footprints...