I appreciate you trying to make OP's case, and I'm genuinely interested in changing my mind about this. What do you think should be done? Should growing companies be prevented from expanding because it might 'erode the character of the city'?
I'm not in favor of the city subsidizing a company's growth, even if it does stimulate the economy in the long-run, but I just can't get behind any policy that would prevent a growing company due to something as nebulous as the erosion of the city's character.
I keep hearing this over and over in this forum, relax the code, change the zoning laws, that'll solve problems.
How many of these folks actually live in a densely populated city? Zoning laws in Manhattan have a different source and downstream effect than some suburb of SF or LA, or some other city with housing cost issues.
It's a huge topic of conversation, but I'll summarize it by offering a few items to ponder before we reduce the problem to "zoning restrictions" and people reply with "100X times this!".
--- Infrastructure is more than housing. And much more expensive. The subway system in NYC isn't scaling to capacity due to the speed of development. It may feel expensive to build a new rental building, but scaling public transportation, education, and more is deeply more expensive.
--- Manhattan isn't dense enough for you? You realize the parent article is about Google purchasing a huge swathe of Manhattan real estate. Are the skyscrapers not high enough? Better yet, maybe we should knock down those 19th century buildings in whatever pockets are left of low density housing in Manhattan and turn everything into a giant concrete reed jungle? Not all NIMBY is mean-spirited, and if you're the traveling type you can understand the need for preservation of architectural character.
--- I live in a part of NYC where zoning laws allow for more building. As it turns out, I even own a building where I could potentially build an additional 1500 square feet, and I could convert my building into six separate apartment buildings. This would add net 4 apartments to a city which has a housing crisis. And I'd love do. However, I'd have to comply with code, which like zoning exists to protect us from ourselves, if for different reasons. To comply with code, so my tenants don't get incinerated in a fire, I'd have to spend so much money that it's cost prohibitive.
Sorry, I'm just tired of reading the same "it's the zoning laws" reductionism by people who know only suburbs.
Yes, I do live in a high density city, San Francisco, and before that I lived in NYC for 2 years.
Manhattan is absolutely not dense enough for me. It has like a couple small areas, with 40 story buildings.
The skyscrapers are not high enough for me.
Here is how things should work. We should pick a single 1 mile square area, and in this area there are zero building height limits. Every single building in this area should be 50 stories tall or higher.
And then we should leave the surrounding area, hundreds of square miles, for the low density people to live in.
Yes, high density buildings are more expensive. But the actual cost of building the building is a small percentage of the total cost of living in an area. The REAL cost is caused by artifical land supply constraints.
You want lower density? Don't want to live in the very small, designated 50 story building area? Great! You can live in the 99% of the US landmass that is low density.
Us people who disagree, and and prefer higher density living should get at least freaking 1% of the land to do what we want with!
Since you've lived in Manhattan, have you since been following the serious infrastructure issues that have been affecting the subway system here?
Have you had a chance to see the effects on massive, quick development on specifically the mass transit system in Brooklyn (downtown Brooklyn, in particular)?
Look, I'm not saying there shouldn't be density. I'm just trying to point a finger at other elements that should be thought about other than tall buildings. I don't have kids, so I won't even get started on the downstream effects density has on school crowdedness, choices and desirability of areas.
The left hand doesn't talk to the right hand in the vast bureaucracy that is NYC. If development and rezoning were done with consideration for long-term downstream factors, I wouldn't have needed to write these comments.
This doesn't work beyond a small amount. There is only so much land so you have to build up and living in an apartment is a pretty huge sacrifice if you were previously in a single family home with a yard.
There is a difference between 'fitting people' somewhere and them being happy.
Living in something dense like Tokyo/NYC is not desirable to people who seek cities like Boulder.
The other option is to keep expanding outward with single family home lots, but prices in the desirable close areas still shoot way up and traffic gets miserable (see LA).
I'm not in favor of the city subsidizing a company's growth, even if it does stimulate the economy in the long-run, but I just can't get behind any policy that would prevent a growing company due to something as nebulous as the erosion of the city's character.
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