What is the obsession with 'skyscrapers'

[kantobento]

Skyscrapers are not immensely denser than low-rise buildings. Most cities around the globe have FAR based restrictions for skyscrapers (usually around 8-10 for commercial buildings, lower for residential buildings). Although this is 60-100% higher than what you could get from a series of tightly packed 5 story low-rises (1.0 BCR, 5.0 FAR), but the actual gap is smaller than that in most real life applications, because most skyscrapers have relatively larger roads while a pack of low-rises could thrive with small walking streets and very limited car access (or even no direct car access).

Manhattan Financial District has about the highest FAR you could have (slightly less than 20), but if you count the road/sidewalk, true FAR of Financial District falls down close to 10. All other Manhattan neighborhoods have much lower true FAR (around 2-5), and entire Manhattan only averages out around 3. This is an achievable number in a low-rise-only city with small roads. In other words, if a city has considerably low density skyscrapers than Manhattan's, it often has lower density than a city full of tightly packed low-rises (i.e. many European cities).

Anyway, either a forest of skyscrapers (Manhattan-dense) or a wall of low rises (similarly dense) are very bad for driving. Traffic alone is pretty bad, and the worst part is parking. In many cases, it raises the parking-related time consumption (spot searching, parking-door walking, waiting for valet to retrieve your car, etc) and the cost of parking to an unbearable height. In extreme cases, it basically leaves you only two options, hire a chauffeur or just forget about driving. This car-restrictive feature is definitely a problem, since public transits won't be nearly as comfort as driving nor as fast. It decreases the overall comfort of its inhabitants as well as mobility.

American cities tried to deal with this issue by bulking up the highway/parking infrastructures and living far away from the city core. It somewhat worked for 2 million pop. metro like Kansas City (which also has the highest freeway lane miles per capita), but it never worked really well for 5-25 million pop. metro. Dallas-Fort Worth might be the best case scenario in this size group, but still far from breeze traffic and keep getting worse for the last few years.

The other problem of the bulked up infrastructures is walkability. Bigger roads and surface parking inevitably reduce the density as well as walkability. You could have both, congestion free car travels and walkable dense urban area, by digging underground.

However, no country is rich enough to do that. Kansas City has 1-2 freeway lane miles per 1,000 capita. That's not enough to achieve the congestion free city in 20 million pop. metro area. Say you aim 5-10 freeway lane miles per 1,000 capita. A mile of freeway lane costs about $5m to build in rural settings, and $20m in urban settings. If you build a city from scratch, you could get away with $5m/lane mile average. That's $25-50k/capita, which isn't exactly impossible, but still an extremely heavy burden for just highway. Each households in the area have to shell out roughly $60-120k in the form of taxes or tolls, just for the highway. And this is just regular highways. When you start digging, the cost per lane miles shoot up to $100-1,000m/lane mile. That's $6-12m/household. You need at least $1-10m GDP per capita for that.

[kokonutty]

Originally Posted by lrfox

Maybe I read it wrong, but I think that's exactly what Massachoicetts is saying. In the Houston example, the infrastructure hasn't kept up.

But it's not skyscrapers that the infrastructure has not kept up with. See the title here? Expanding suburbs are the antithesis of concentrated skyscraper proliferation.

[mustang84]

Skyscrapers are interesting in the same way that a Gothic cathedral in the middle of a medieval European city is interesting. It provides a landmark on the horizon, and a landmark for wayfinding when you are at different points within an urban area. For places inland that don't have geographical features such as waterfronts or mountains, skyscrapers are mankind's attempt to create an artificial landform. Get rid of the top 8 tallest buildings in Dallas, Des Moines, or Charlotte and suddenly these cities are far less recognizable and I would argue less interesting.

The cities that do skyscrapers best are the ones that mix buildings of different scales, styles, and eras. New York is one of the most interesting cities in the world due to its collection of different architectural styles that span decades and ranges of heights, all while keeping things urban and dense. Houston, TX has an interesting skyline from afar, but when you are standing in the thick of it surrounded by 500+ ft. skyscrapers next to wide, non pedestrian-friendly streets that are dotted with surface parking lots...everything is out of scale.

Long story short - I like skyscrapers, but agree they need the right urban context to be successful.

[hickoryfan]

They are beautiful, attractive, awe-inspiring. What else can man make that gets the attention and admiration of people like some that love a sunset, or hearing the roar of the ocean on a warm summer morning? For me, it's a beautiful skyline, especially at night.