[dankohn1]

I may live in the densest neighborhood of any HN participant: North Battery Park City [1] in Lower Manhattan. As an example, my son's 500 kid elementary school serves 9 buildings.

And I'm here to tell you, the future feels great. Specifically, living vertically has all sorts of wonderful aspects in terms of community (the kids can trick-or-treat without leaving the building), access to resources (my kids can ride the elevator barefoot to the waterpark out the back door in the summer) and environmentally (we live in the first LEED platinum residential building in the US).

The only problem is that it is expensive, and it doesn't need to be as expensive as it is. Building lots more residential skyscrapers, eliminating parking minimums [2], and reducing the incentive to warehouse vacant lots through land taxes or similar can all make New York City even more livable than it already is.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_Park_City [2] http://www.streetsblog.org/2012/03/21/report-details-how-one...

[Jacqued]

You don't even need to live in the future to have a very high density. Paris proper has a density of 50000/sqmi yet has simply and literally banned high rise buildings. There are 2 districts with a number of these (although low by manhattan standards, culminating at 100m) but they are relics of the 70s and none has been built since then.

What is probably the greatest advantage of very dense cities is that you can have a really great public transportation network. While the farther suburbs cruelly lack transportation, Paris proper is tightly covered, with the great majority of residents having less than 500m to walk to get to the subway (and some lines have stops every 200m).

In these conditions a post-car society truly is possible and we're slowly but steadily getting there, with streets being closed to cars one by one, and parking spots being removed by the hundreds month after month.

[rayiner]

It should be noted that Manhattan is a lot denser than it is on paper. It's daytime population is more than double its residential population. Midtown Manhattan on a weekday probably has several hundred thousand people per square mile, rather than the 70,000 per square mile nominal density of the island.

[maratd]

Bingo. There are a ton of people who live in the other boroughs, New Jersey, etc. that commute into Manhattan for work every work day and even on the weekends for fun.

[deet]

High density doesn't always equate to pleasantness though. It still has to be done right to be livable.

I spent last year living near Columbus Circle (the southwest corner of Central Park in Midtown Manhattan) which is probably equally dense as Battery Park, and didn't care for it much primarily due to its mixed use. The population density is quite high there, but it is mixed in with office buildings that suck the character out of the area. In particular, returning there at night didn't feel like "coming home" to a neighborhood. We've since moved to a neighborhood that is almost exclusively residential (but still dense) and the difference in character and livability is very noticeable.

High density if not done right also can have a negative psychological impact (tall buildings means less sun), constant crowds might mean less chance to destress, no greenery, etc.

The point is, density isn't the only requirement, it has be done right, so practicing a bit of restraint in allowing building might make sense.

[ghaff]

And the density of someplace like Manhattan has inherent characteristics that aren't to everyone's taste. I enjoy visiting there (a lot) but I lived in Manhattan one summer. It was a while ago when aspects of Manhattan were admittedly less pleasant than today. And I was an intern while in school so I didn't have a lot of money to spend. And it was summer. But I remember that by August I was calling up friends in Greenwich and Princeton to inform them that I WAS coming to visit them for the weekend :-) I just have to get out of the city.

[worklogin]

Interesting. Mixed use is often touted as a way to reduce dependence on cars and promote local economy.

[graeme]

Depends how you do it. I live in a mixed use neighborhood, with lots of shops and stores and it's great.

Likewise, downtown montreal is pretty interesting. As a pedestrian, there are plenty of things for you to do at street level, while people live and work above.

Versus downtown toronto, where there's little for pedestrians to do in much of downtown. You don't see nearly as many people walking around.

[ctdonath]

Indeed. If density is paramount, we can cram everyone in a 1km^3 box. http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/03/7-3-billion-people-one-buildin...

[noobermin]

At least for Greenery, Singapore does a great job of this.

[benihana]

Yep. I landed in the Upper East Side in a small apartment with bad lighting - the main window faced a building. The way it was built, I saw into my next door neighbor's kitchen and bedroom. I was really depressed that whole first winter cause of how cavelike my apartment felt.

[_delirium]

What's odd is that Manhattan's population density has on a long timescale been declining rather than growing, despite quite a bit of construction. In the 1900 census the population was 1.85 million (density ~80,000/sq mi), and it reached its peak of 2.33 million (~100,000/sq mi) in the 1910 census. Since then it's on the way down, with some bumps here and there: 1.96 million (~85,000/sq mi) in 1950, and all the way down to 1.54 million (~70,000/sq mi) by the 2000 census, having lost a full 1/3 of its population since 1910. The 2013 census estimate does put it at least on a growth trajectory again, to 1.63 million, but it'll be a while before it climbs up past 2 million again at that rate.

The main reasons, as far as I can gather, seem to be: 1) lower-class residential towers are being replaced by higher-end residential towers with larger units and fewer people per sq ft; 2) even given the same units, people are living fewer to a unit (fewer children, fewer multigeneration households); and 3) commercial real estate is crowding out residential real estate.

[dankohn1]

Here's a great illustration of the falling density in Manhattan from 1910 to today: http://www.vox.com/2014/9/23/6832975/manhattan-population-de...

[nostrademons]

Interesting...based on that illustration, it seems like #2 is the dominant factor. The areas of previously highest density are the Lower East Side and East Village, formerly working-class immigrant enclaves with more tenements than highrises.

[bradleyjg]

I don't know that Manhattan, either in the geographic sense or real estate broker sense, is a great unit of measure for urban planning / comparison purposes.

There are parts of even Manhattan south of 14th street that have longer commutes to Wall Street than parts of Brooklyn or Jersey City.

Yes, Manhattan doesn't contain very many high density lower-middle-class immigrant neighborhoods anymore, but NYC still very much does. I'm not sure which side of the river they are on matters much.

[ori_b]

I suspect that the actual density in terms of average people present per square km is increasing (as opposed to the number of people living there on paper). Especially during working hours.

Tons of people commute in. Competing with the businesses that use the space for commuters is expensive

[krschultz]

In terms of #3, anywhere developers can build residential, they will. Rents & prices on residential are much higher. Unfortunately Manhattan zoning prevents residential in large parts of the city. I believe that is why there are so many hotels going up in the 20s/30s on the west side, when that is someday rezoned it will be easier to convert to residential than offices would have been.

[akgerber]

The garment district (the 20s/30s on the West Side) is zoned industrial. Hotels are legal in industrial zones, but apartments aren't, so hotels get built.

[mc32]

That and overcrowded tenement buildings full of fire hazards going away helps push down density, but in this case for the better.

[jgalt212]

> And I'm here to tell you, the future feels great.

While the future may feel great to you, most New Yorkers would agree that Battery Park City does not feel like New York. That may be good or bad depending on your perspective.

And just in case, you think I'm here to knock you, I'll leave you with this Abraham Lincoln quote:

I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives.

[dankohn1]

For single people moving to NYC, Battery Park City would be the last place I recommend (I would look at NoHo, North Williamsburg, and Bushwick). But if you have kids, it is a great option.