5 ms·

Here's an interesting comparison. New York City's population density is 56% higher than San Francisco's, and the average height of a building in New York City i

Here's an interesting comparison. New York City's population density is 56% higher than San Francisco's, and the average height of a building in New York City is only 6.8 stories (in spite of skyscrapers pushing up the mean). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b... http://www.sunilmishra.in/2012/07/05/average-building-height-of-cities/ http://www.sunilmishra.in/2012/07/05/average-building-height...

aidenn0 10y ago
Do you happen to know how many units the largest residential building in NYC has? It would be interesting to know the minimum number of buildings needed to cover the 200k unit deficit. [edit] Thanks for all the replies! So it looks like we are talking about a minimum of hundreds of buildings to be torn-down and rebuilt taller. That seems unlikely to happen in SF proper.
- JumpCrisscross 10y ago
  "A West 57th Street project by developer TF Cornerstone will be New York City’s largest apartment building when completed, with 1,189 units, according to city records." http://therealdeal.com/2013/11/12/tf-cornerstones-606-west-57th-street-to-be-nycs-largest-resi-building/ http://therealdeal.com/2013/11/12/tf-cornerstones-606-west-5...
  - patmcguire 10y ago
    3333 Broadway has 1200. It's technically five buildings, although they are all connected, so I don't know how they decide that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverside_Park_Community https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverside_Park_Community It's also a monster of a building. I kind of get the NIMBY vibe if it's about that, it's just too big, sucks up all the energy. There are a few like that this (Galaxy Towers in Guttenberg). They're all old, though, they don't build new stuff like that.
- sf_rob 10y ago
  Interesting idea. It looks like the largest in terms of number of units built in 2014-2015 in NYC was 815 units, so you would need 246 of them to get to 200000+ units. http://therealdeal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/NYC-Condo-filings-20151.jpg http://therealdeal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/NYC-Condo-...
  - makomk 10y ago
    That 815 units was a proposal, not something that's actually been built. It appears the company intending to build it has since cut the proposed size to 646 units, and that's big even for NYC - the biggest on that list that's actually being constructed is 246 units and the sizes drop rapidly from there. So you'd be looking at a thousand or so NYC-sized buildings, in an area probably considerably less suited to them than NYC. (Oh, and the estimates I can find claim that apartments in that building are selling for about $2,000 per square foot. I think that's expensive even compared to SF prices. What's more, anyone who complains that SF housing development is too slow needs to realise that 246-unit building is part of a construction project originally proposed in the late 80s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverside_South https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverside_South )
- aaronbwebber 10y ago
  I dunno, but the Rincon towers in SF have something like 300 units each, so you are talking about several hundred Rincon-sized buildings or a few thousand 50-100 unit buildings.
- twic 10y ago
  423 Park Avenue is the tallest [1]. 412 637 square feet, containing 104 apartments. I have no idea what fraction of the floor area is apartments, but if it was all of it, they would average 3968 square feet, which seems huge. If everyone got the same modest but comfortable 820 square feet i have, there could be 503 apartments. At that rate, you'd need about 400 towers to make 200 000 apartments. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/432_Park_Avenue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/432_Park_Avenue
  - krschultz 10y ago
    A pretty high fraction of each floor is apartments, the problem is that the apartments are huge. I'm pretty sure the penthouses actually span two floors. The lower floors probably have 2 or 3 units per floor. More moderate apartment buildings would have had several units per floor, but that building was built to be the most prestigious in the city.
- rayiner 10y ago
  I don't know about New York. I lived in a two-tower complex in Chicago, 45-stories with over 1,000 apartments total. But you don't need tons of high-rises. Having everything be free-standing buildings is the larger problem. Blocks of mid-rises is what drives density in places like Paris: https://agingmodernism.wordpress.com/category/sarcelles https://agingmodernism.wordpress.com/category/sarcelles.
- cylinder 10y ago
  Not one building, but the Stuyvesant Town complex in Manhattan has 30,000+ residents and it sits on 80 acres with 89 buildings, and lots of green space, basketball courts, etc. It's a very livable place.
sampo 10y ago
> New York City's population density is 56% higher than San Francisco's And even New York City is not really that dense: San Francisco: 18 000 people per mi2 New York City: 27 000 Barcelona: 41 000 Paris: 55 000 Only Manhattan (72 000 per mi2) is dense.
- nerfhammer 10y ago
  New York City is vast. Brooklyn alone is 40% larger than San Francisco.
  - davidw 10y ago
    If you're talking about outlying areas, the rest of the bay area is amazingly not dense given how expensive housing is.
    - vonmoltke 10y ago
      You can't really compare a single municipality to several that collectively equal it's size. The latter case has a whole lot of more localized and conflicting political interests that serve to hold back the area as a whole.
      - davidw 10y ago
        I know they're different politically - I'm comparing the results, which are terrible.
      - nerfhammer 10y ago
        Note New York City has less of these issues because over the centuries it gained control of its neighboring areas from other counties, something San Francisco never did.
        sampo 10y ago
        But given how fervently anti-development San Francisco itself also is, would it even have helped?

aidenn0 10y ago

Do you happen to know how many units the largest residential building in NYC has? It would be interesting to know the minimum number of buildings needed to cover the 200k unit deficit. [edit] Thanks for all the replies! So it looks like we are talking about a minimum of hundreds of buildings to be torn-down and rebuilt taller. That seems unlikely to happen in SF proper.

JumpCrisscross 10y ago
"A West 57th Street project by developer TF Cornerstone will be New York City’s largest apartment building when completed, with 1,189 units, according to city records." http://therealdeal.com/2013/11/12/tf-cornerstones-606-west-57th-street-to-be-nycs-largest-resi-building/ http://therealdeal.com/2013/11/12/tf-cornerstones-606-west-5...
- patmcguire 10y ago
  3333 Broadway has 1200. It's technically five buildings, although they are all connected, so I don't know how they decide that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverside_Park_Community https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverside_Park_Community It's also a monster of a building. I kind of get the NIMBY vibe if it's about that, it's just too big, sucks up all the energy. There are a few like that this (Galaxy Towers in Guttenberg). They're all old, though, they don't build new stuff like that.
sf_rob 10y ago
Interesting idea. It looks like the largest in terms of number of units built in 2014-2015 in NYC was 815 units, so you would need 246 of them to get to 200000+ units. http://therealdeal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/NYC-Condo-filings-20151.jpg http://therealdeal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/NYC-Condo-...
- makomk 10y ago
  That 815 units was a proposal, not something that's actually been built. It appears the company intending to build it has since cut the proposed size to 646 units, and that's big even for NYC - the biggest on that list that's actually being constructed is 246 units and the sizes drop rapidly from there. So you'd be looking at a thousand or so NYC-sized buildings, in an area probably considerably less suited to them than NYC. (Oh, and the estimates I can find claim that apartments in that building are selling for about $2,000 per square foot. I think that's expensive even compared to SF prices. What's more, anyone who complains that SF housing development is too slow needs to realise that 246-unit building is part of a construction project originally proposed in the late 80s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverside_South https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverside_South )
aaronbwebber 10y ago
I dunno, but the Rincon towers in SF have something like 300 units each, so you are talking about several hundred Rincon-sized buildings or a few thousand 50-100 unit buildings.
twic 10y ago
423 Park Avenue is the tallest [1]. 412 637 square feet, containing 104 apartments. I have no idea what fraction of the floor area is apartments, but if it was all of it, they would average 3968 square feet, which seems huge. If everyone got the same modest but comfortable 820 square feet i have, there could be 503 apartments. At that rate, you'd need about 400 towers to make 200 000 apartments. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/432_Park_Avenue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/432_Park_Avenue
- krschultz 10y ago
  A pretty high fraction of each floor is apartments, the problem is that the apartments are huge. I'm pretty sure the penthouses actually span two floors. The lower floors probably have 2 or 3 units per floor. More moderate apartment buildings would have had several units per floor, but that building was built to be the most prestigious in the city.
rayiner 10y ago
I don't know about New York. I lived in a two-tower complex in Chicago, 45-stories with over 1,000 apartments total. But you don't need tons of high-rises. Having everything be free-standing buildings is the larger problem. Blocks of mid-rises is what drives density in places like Paris: https://agingmodernism.wordpress.com/category/sarcelles https://agingmodernism.wordpress.com/category/sarcelles.
cylinder 10y ago
Not one building, but the Stuyvesant Town complex in Manhattan has 30,000+ residents and it sits on 80 acres with 89 buildings, and lots of green space, basketball courts, etc. It's a very livable place.

sampo 10y ago

> New York City's population density is 56% higher than San Francisco's And even New York City is not really that dense: San Francisco: 18 000 people per mi2 New York City: 27 000 Barcelona: 41 000 Paris: 55 000 Only Manhattan (72 000 per mi2) is dense.

nerfhammer 10y ago
New York City is vast. Brooklyn alone is 40% larger than San Francisco.
- davidw 10y ago
  If you're talking about outlying areas, the rest of the bay area is amazingly not dense given how expensive housing is.
  - vonmoltke 10y ago
    You can't really compare a single municipality to several that collectively equal it's size. The latter case has a whole lot of more localized and conflicting political interests that serve to hold back the area as a whole.
    - davidw 10y ago
      I know they're different politically - I'm comparing the results, which are terrible.
    - nerfhammer 10y ago
      Note New York City has less of these issues because over the centuries it gained control of its neighboring areas from other counties, something San Francisco never did.
      - sampo 10y ago
        But given how fervently anti-development San Francisco itself also is, would it even have helped?