We'll Start With the Jumbo Shrimp...
Posted by AGI on August 9, 2006 07:43 PM | Permalink
The Times ran an article on what is hopefully not a national trend: the growing popularity of the term "vertical sprawl" by the radical anti-development set.
More particularly, they argue "vertical sprawl" in urban locations is a terrible concept.
"They use this specious argument about smart growth to dump density in urban cores," Ms. Smith said.
This is the kind of idea that gives the term "progressive thought" a bad name, i.e. ones that hold fun and avant-garde concepts over reality. If you don't like density, maybe you shouldn't live in a city. But at least don't encourage any more of this, or this.
At its best, this is another NIMBY (not in my backyard) attitude trying to be pushed under the guise of:
"We want to protect these places from being taken over by infill and driving out working class."
Which all seems sort of backwards considering that infill creates more housing opportunities, which raises supply, and lowers demand. No need to take deductive reasoning to the next step. But we can't help but link to this and wonder how long.
The Times' pessimistic view on high rises has definitely missed out on the tremendous benefits, which not only do we crave, but need these days (especially with global warming). Sun Damage - a woe to the many of us who stand out in the sun for a mere 5 minutes and must bear the harsh reality of inflamed peeling skin on our face. For those of us who do not walk to work with a baseball cap, we face that risk of skin cancer on our foreheads 5 days a week. These skyscrapers provide us with ample shade and thus shield us from the harmful UV rays.
Aside from that, skyscrapers bringing in more housing within the city not only lowers our dependency on gas but allows us more open space to venture out to on our 12 days of vacation (if not less) per year.
But the real question is, how tall must you build these skyscrapers in order to finally have supply meet demand in a city? Maybe its time to tear down the historic Crazy Horse or Gold Club and build the next tallest condo buildings in the world.
Posted by: Two glasses of ... | August 16, 2006 11:37 AM