People downvoting you, but I think you are unknowingly touching on something interesting. We can get really high density without skyscrapers by building consist

People downvoting you, but I think you are unknowingly touching on something interesting. We can get really high density without skyscrapers by building consistently somewhat high. The cores of Paris, Barcelona and Begin all have fairly consistently 4-5 story buildings without much space between them. It's also largely mixed use. I believe that the density of actually higher than many parts of Manhattan like the village or even parts of the upper east side. I think that's often outcome of somewhat central planning though and building up massively where demand is is an easier way to dynamically adjust to emerging needs. My favorite though is as high and dense as possible and increase the likelihood that many people might even live and work within the same building. Connecting buildings on floors other than the ground floor is also something I'd love to see more of.