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I have a human need to live among skyscrapers. From the time I was a little kid, my favorite thing to do on a weekend was anything downtown. I found it incredib

I have a human need to live among skyscrapers. From the time I was a little kid, my favorite thing to do on a weekend was anything downtown. I found it incredibly depressing when we would go back to our postwar-sprawl house at the end of the day. Later we moved to an older inner-ring suburb, and that was a little better, but only some. Day trips to the nearest proper city would be the highlight of a year. New York was one of the best experiences of an entire childhood. It still boggles the mind that people refer to Manhattan like a cautionary tale. To me it's nirvana. This obsession never went away. I can't really explain it. Maybe the sensory stimulation, maybe the comforting premise of an active hive of other human life, maybe something else, but it remains as important to me as ever. I think the skyscraper city is a little like the symphony orchestra: it has an object-level aesthetic, but on the meta level it's a celebration of civilization itself. It is incredibly fortunate that my interest in computers translates to one of the few jobs in America that will pay enough to live in a place like this. By the same token, it's distressing that such places are so precious and so rare.

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
Are you me? :) Glad to hear someone else with the exact same viewpoint. Ever since I was a little kid I dreamed of living in a city with skyscrapers, and my partner's demand that we move out to the suburbs nearly ended our relationship.
- LightG 5y ago
  What was the compromise? If there was one (!)
  - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
    Well, at first I lost. But it did help me discover that the most important thing for me was walkability. I could compromise on the highrise living, but we moved to a car-dependent neighborhood, and that's the part I despised most, and it significantly negatively affected my physical health, and thus then my mental health. I strongly believe that car-dependent suburbs are just plain awful. In the end, money cured it for the most part. We rented a small studio pied-à-terre downtown and would spend a couple days there a week. We actually didn't do this for too long because it wasn't long until Covid hit and downtown basically died, so we didn't renew our lease. Not sure what's next.
DoreenMichele 5y ago
I'm not advocating that anyone tear down the skyscrapers that currently exist. But I certainly do not agree with the idea that skyscrapers are the only or even the best solution to the problems we currently have rooted in trying to figure out how to make life work for roughly eight billion humans on planet earth.
- closeparen 5y ago
  If nothing else, skyscrapers are expensive; I don't think they would ever pencil out as the default mode of housing for most people. The 5-story model you talked about is pretty good - I went to college in a neighborhood like that - and that's what I'd like to see displace the suburbs for the greatest number of people in economically unspectacular places. Still, I think it's important to have skyscraper cores and we should build them closer to the economic limits than the present legal limits.
- Retric 5y ago
  Skyscrapers solve several really hard problems. For example, dense sidewalks have higher throughput than city streets or even subways, unfortunately people don’t walk very quickly and most sidewalks see little use. However, the number of places you can walk to directly correlates to building height. So, in effect someone walking surrounded by skyscrapers is doing the equivalent of highway speeds when surrounded by 6 story buildings. Which is why NYC sidewalks get used so much, they are a very useful form of transportation. Which has positive knock on effects in terms of human health etc.
  - Talanes 5y ago
    > However, the number of places you can walk to directly correlates to building height. Except every floor doesn't have an equal effect? Lower levels and rooftops are going to host the majority of destinations, while mid-levels are most likely to be homes and offices that are adding to the pool of people able to walk to those destinations.
    - Retric 5y ago
syntheweave 5y ago
I shared this feeling when I was young, but a disillusionment with skyscrapers crept in as I increasingly recognized that although they are symbolically prominent and physically dense, they don't operate as communities that integrate in a broader sense. Office districts are ghost towns after commute hours; condo tower residents mostly stay behind their doors. The built infrastructure is reduced to the functional aspect of warehousing people like so many goods, and other types of spaces are found only by leaving the tower, turning walks into commutes. On many levels, they are industrial achievements, equivalents to the factory and railroad. And each of these structures has their beauty, but in all cases, they remind us of ourselves, and not of nature. A world of steel-glass-concrete is incomplete in this sense, and I now see the appeal of low-rise neighborhoods that can distill a mixture of energies and create lively street scenes, quiet parks, and so forth.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  Maybe that's because condos have windows that only face away from the building. Perhaps if they were built with interior common areas (like a town square) with windows facing them, that would change everything.
  - biztos 5y ago
    That’s an interesting point. In Europe at least a lot of buildings have big courtyards and windows face there. In Germany it’s less desirable to have a view of the street, unless you’re on a really high floor. I currently am on the 40th with a view away from the building. I am trying to move to the 12th with a view across the facilities (pools mostly, it’s Asia). I’m curious whether that will change how I feel about the building.
  - praptak 5y ago
    Le Corbusier tried that but I think the prevailing agreement is that it didn't work.
    - bobthepanda 5y ago
      Le Corbusier had a very specific view of towers though. Tower social housing failed, mostly because it turns out concentrating poverty is a terrible idea, but that would be true if it were towers or two-story houses. And separating uses aggravated the problems by providing less diversity of people who could keep "eyes on the street" active. But none of that is really inherent to tower design.
yes_really 5y ago
> I have a human need to live among skyscrapers Do you really? There are lots of cities outside the US with 6-story or 12-story buildings that are very vibrant. We don't really need skyscrapers for that.
- ajconway 5y ago
  It's clearly a personal preference. Many people adore old historical districts of Europe, dream of living in Paris or Florence. Some can't stand the buzz of the city and prefer to have a place in the countryside. Some just like modern tall metal and glass buildings.
- Redoubts 5y ago
  > Do you really? Yes. Your desires and preferences aren’t objectively correct, in case you’re shocked here.
js8 5y ago
I had exactly opposite feeling when, at 30, I visited Manhattan. The downtown (from the street level) was just depressing, all these skyscraper walls around you. Then subway (which looks like a cellar, I couldn't find the station entrance despite looking at it) to 103rd street where I had hostel, not much better feeling with dense high-rise appartments. I had to take a quick walk into central park to recuperate, although it was not recommended to stay after dark there. I wouldn't want to live there. And mind you, I was born in the center of Prague's Jizni mesto, which is a district designed in the 70s by communist government (to solve a housing crisis), build with cookie-cutter, 8-12 store, grey and boxy appartment buildings. Certainly not ideal urbanistically, very little commercial zoning, but still quite a bit of greenery (and from the 6th floor, we can actually view about 30 km to the countryside). In fact, some claim there was more space dedicated to greenery when it was built than in modern capitalist "luxury residential" developments.
- kolinko 5y ago
  The problem in US is not with skyscrapers but with the grid structure. Singapore is an awesome example of a coty filled with skyscrapers but no grid, amd it feels amazing and spacious.
Al-Khwarizmi 5y ago
I think I would feel the same if I had grown up in America, because I do find suburban sprawl depressing and from what I've seen in most American cities I've visited, there's hardly any middle ground between that and the skyscrapers. So given that choice, I would greatly prefer the skyscrapers too. But note that in other places there is plenty of middle ground. I live in a city where most buildings are in the range of 4 to 12 stories (someone actually computed the average height of a building and it's 5.15 stories) and it's enough for streets to be bustling with activity, and for being able to live without a car. I do like the skyscraper aesthetic, but I also feel that once you go beyond a certain threshold, buildings start becoming soulless, and it also starts becoming harder to have regular, non-luxury shops at the street level due to that space being incredibly scarce, so the level of "boringness" goes up again (although not to the levels of suburbs, of course). So to me, mid-rise buildings (maybe with a few skyscrapers here are an there) are a good equilibrium. YMMV, of course.
newsclues 5y ago
Is it need or want to live among skyscrapers? I prefer mountains myself
- closeparen 5y ago
  Sounds like a Russel's conjugation [0]. When you're banning the buildings I like it is because of "human needs," when I say I like them it is just a "want." I do think mountains give a similar effect, having interesting variations in height and a sense of being "walled in." I reliably feel like crap at elevation though. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotive_conjugation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotive_conjugation

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago

Are you me? :) Glad to hear someone else with the exact same viewpoint. Ever since I was a little kid I dreamed of living in a city with skyscrapers, and my partner's demand that we move out to the suburbs nearly ended our relationship.

LightG 5y ago
What was the compromise? If there was one (!)
- hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
  Well, at first I lost. But it did help me discover that the most important thing for me was walkability. I could compromise on the highrise living, but we moved to a car-dependent neighborhood, and that's the part I despised most, and it significantly negatively affected my physical health, and thus then my mental health. I strongly believe that car-dependent suburbs are just plain awful. In the end, money cured it for the most part. We rented a small studio pied-à-terre downtown and would spend a couple days there a week. We actually didn't do this for too long because it wasn't long until Covid hit and downtown basically died, so we didn't renew our lease. Not sure what's next.

DoreenMichele 5y ago

I'm not advocating that anyone tear down the skyscrapers that currently exist. But I certainly do not agree with the idea that skyscrapers are the only or even the best solution to the problems we currently have rooted in trying to figure out how to make life work for roughly eight billion humans on planet earth.

closeparen 5y ago
If nothing else, skyscrapers are expensive; I don't think they would ever pencil out as the default mode of housing for most people. The 5-story model you talked about is pretty good - I went to college in a neighborhood like that - and that's what I'd like to see displace the suburbs for the greatest number of people in economically unspectacular places. Still, I think it's important to have skyscraper cores and we should build them closer to the economic limits than the present legal limits.
Retric 5y ago
Skyscrapers solve several really hard problems. For example, dense sidewalks have higher throughput than city streets or even subways, unfortunately people don’t walk very quickly and most sidewalks see little use. However, the number of places you can walk to directly correlates to building height. So, in effect someone walking surrounded by skyscrapers is doing the equivalent of highway speeds when surrounded by 6 story buildings. Which is why NYC sidewalks get used so much, they are a very useful form of transportation. Which has positive knock on effects in terms of human health etc.
- Talanes 5y ago
  > However, the number of places you can walk to directly correlates to building height. Except every floor doesn't have an equal effect? Lower levels and rooftops are going to host the majority of destinations, while mid-levels are most likely to be homes and offices that are adding to the pool of people able to walk to those destinations.
  - Retric 5y ago

syntheweave 5y ago

I shared this feeling when I was young, but a disillusionment with skyscrapers crept in as I increasingly recognized that although they are symbolically prominent and physically dense, they don't operate as communities that integrate in a broader sense. Office districts are ghost towns after commute hours; condo tower residents mostly stay behind their doors. The built infrastructure is reduced to the functional aspect of warehousing people like so many goods, and other types of spaces are found only by leaving the tower, turning walks into commutes. On many levels, they are industrial achievements, equivalents to the factory and railroad. And each of these structures has their beauty, but in all cases, they remind us of ourselves, and not of nature. A world of steel-glass-concrete is incomplete in this sense, and I now see the appeal of low-rise neighborhoods that can distill a mixture of energies and create lively street scenes, quiet parks, and so forth.

WalterBright 5y ago
Maybe that's because condos have windows that only face away from the building. Perhaps if they were built with interior common areas (like a town square) with windows facing them, that would change everything.
- biztos 5y ago
  That’s an interesting point. In Europe at least a lot of buildings have big courtyards and windows face there. In Germany it’s less desirable to have a view of the street, unless you’re on a really high floor. I currently am on the 40th with a view away from the building. I am trying to move to the 12th with a view across the facilities (pools mostly, it’s Asia). I’m curious whether that will change how I feel about the building.
- praptak 5y ago
  Le Corbusier tried that but I think the prevailing agreement is that it didn't work.
  - bobthepanda 5y ago
    Le Corbusier had a very specific view of towers though. Tower social housing failed, mostly because it turns out concentrating poverty is a terrible idea, but that would be true if it were towers or two-story houses. And separating uses aggravated the problems by providing less diversity of people who could keep "eyes on the street" active. But none of that is really inherent to tower design.

yes_really 5y ago

> I have a human need to live among skyscrapers Do you really? There are lots of cities outside the US with 6-story or 12-story buildings that are very vibrant. We don't really need skyscrapers for that.

ajconway 5y ago
It's clearly a personal preference. Many people adore old historical districts of Europe, dream of living in Paris or Florence. Some can't stand the buzz of the city and prefer to have a place in the countryside. Some just like modern tall metal and glass buildings.
Redoubts 5y ago
> Do you really? Yes. Your desires and preferences aren’t objectively correct, in case you’re shocked here.

js8 5y ago

I had exactly opposite feeling when, at 30, I visited Manhattan. The downtown (from the street level) was just depressing, all these skyscraper walls around you. Then subway (which looks like a cellar, I couldn't find the station entrance despite looking at it) to 103rd street where I had hostel, not much better feeling with dense high-rise appartments. I had to take a quick walk into central park to recuperate, although it was not recommended to stay after dark there. I wouldn't want to live there. And mind you, I was born in the center of Prague's Jizni mesto, which is a district designed in the 70s by communist government (to solve a housing crisis), build with cookie-cutter, 8-12 store, grey and boxy appartment buildings. Certainly not ideal urbanistically, very little commercial zoning, but still quite a bit of greenery (and from the 6th floor, we can actually view about 30 km to the countryside). In fact, some claim there was more space dedicated to greenery when it was built than in modern capitalist "luxury residential" developments.

kolinko 5y ago
The problem in US is not with skyscrapers but with the grid structure. Singapore is an awesome example of a coty filled with skyscrapers but no grid, amd it feels amazing and spacious.

Al-Khwarizmi 5y ago

I think I would feel the same if I had grown up in America, because I do find suburban sprawl depressing and from what I've seen in most American cities I've visited, there's hardly any middle ground between that and the skyscrapers. So given that choice, I would greatly prefer the skyscrapers too. But note that in other places there is plenty of middle ground. I live in a city where most buildings are in the range of 4 to 12 stories (someone actually computed the average height of a building and it's 5.15 stories) and it's enough for streets to be bustling with activity, and for being able to live without a car. I do like the skyscraper aesthetic, but I also feel that once you go beyond a certain threshold, buildings start becoming soulless, and it also starts becoming harder to have regular, non-luxury shops at the street level due to that space being incredibly scarce, so the level of "boringness" goes up again (although not to the levels of suburbs, of course). So to me, mid-rise buildings (maybe with a few skyscrapers here are an there) are a good equilibrium. YMMV, of course.

newsclues 5y ago

Is it need or want to live among skyscrapers? I prefer mountains myself

closeparen 5y ago
Sounds like a Russel's conjugation [0]. When you're banning the buildings I like it is because of "human needs," when I say I like them it is just a "want." I do think mountains give a similar effect, having interesting variations in height and a sense of being "walled in." I reliably feel like crap at elevation though. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotive_conjugation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotive_conjugation