Skyline: short and busy or tall and dead?
 

Which would you prefer: a short squat skyline with bland architecture but busy at street level or a tall skyline with iconic architecture but nearly dead at street level?

So, a city like Dallas versus a city like Lisbon? I choose Lisbon. We're presumably all skyscraper nerds around here, myself included, but realistically what is a snazzy skyscraper good for outside of bragging rights and enhancing postcard photos? From a first person perspective, it's all about the street level experience.

I like skyscrapers when they're interestingly designed, but they make no sense when they're not truly needed by the market.

This is currently the tallest concrete structure in the world.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...%E5%8C%971.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldin_Finance_117

128 floors uncomplete and abandoned in Tianjin, China because of the real estate crisis over there.
It could be something in a vibrant economy, but right now, it's only a prick in the middle of nothing much.

By the way, China is failing because of their Maoist unique party. It is still an authoritarian regime that fails at doing things properly.

In fact, favored districts featuring entire clusters of skyscrapers are still rare.
What do we have in this league? New York and Chicago? That's about it.
And I wouldn't like to be an arrogant dick, but Paris, with its mid-rise sea still beats them hands down at the ranking of the prettiest cities in the world.

So yeah, I'd rather have a whole bunch of mid-rises in a vibrant market and nicely laid-out neighborhoods than a couple of skyscrapers in the middle of nowhere.
It should be quite obvious to anybody on here. Beyond skyscraper nerds, you need to be urban planning freaks.

I think most people would want a city with a lot going on and which is alive and vibrant versus one that looks pretty at a certain angle and that's it.

That being said, I think most people appreciate taller buildings which serve as landmarks. A city that doesn't even have one tall building might be aesthetically bland. Even Paris has the Eiffel Tower.

Tokyo and Osaka and other Japanese cities are mostly low rise but they do have a few major skyscrapers like the Sky Tree.

You both make good points.

Maoist? China hasn't been Maoist since Mao was alive. :haha:

First option, street experience is always better. Dubai is the best example of horrible pedestrian experience mixed with tall towers.

https://i.imgur.com/8vLg07m.png
This is why NYC is so special, they have unique towers and amazing street-level experience.

It is not a skyscraper, though. It is not even a "building".

By defintion, a building (fr: immeuble) is made of floors stacked upon each other.
The Eiffel Tower is nothing like this. It has only 3 floors with huge gaps in between and some kind of experimental penthouse on top of the 3rd floor.

Of course, everybody loves the structure as an universal landmark, but it doesn't qualify as a skyscraper.

Most skyscrapers in Paris are at la Défense, full of offices and that district doesn't come close to the neighborhood of the Eiffel Tower in terms of real estate values.

Sure, but the Eiffel Tower is the example of a structure which was constructed for no practical purpose besides its appearance. Therefore it fits the topic of this discussion, which is whether or not you would prefer a city that has lots of impressive structures but no life on the streets, versus a city with lively streets but no impressive structures.

Paris exemplifies the latter, it has a lot of amazing streets, but it doesn't have giant skyscrapers just to have giant skyscrapers the way some cities in poor dictatorships do to show off. It was built up too early in history for that. But still, it has at least one giant "skyscraper" that was built because at one point somebody said "it would be nice if we had a landmark structure that stood out". Which I guess does seem similar to the attitudes of countries like Malaysia today. I suppose there's also the Notre Dame too, but you get what I am saying.

The La Defense skyscrapers are nice and to some extent they do look like "trophy" buildings built by institutions to be impressive, but they seem to be utilitarian and built in response to actual market forces. And they aren't really that tall as far as skyscrapers go. So they aren't really like a Chinese or Middle Eastern city's attempt at showing off.

Short and busy should is the first step on the path to tall and busy. Cities that jump to tall and dead did it wrong.

"Building"...another word that has no single definition. If someone wants to include the Eiffel Tower, they can.

PS, the dictionary isn't the law on this sort of thing. They just try to keep up with actual usage.

PS, I'd take active streets in all cases of course.

When I was younger: the latter
Nowadays: the former, in spades (but hopefully not bland architecture)

Lifeless tall buildings in an environment bereft of pedestrian traffic don't make a city.

Nobody ever went to Paris just to see the Tour Montparnasse.

Short and busy always over dead zone CBD's that are only occupied between 9-5 on weekdays.

In my observation, only Latin America and East Asia can consistently pull off "tall" with "busy".

Elsewhere in the world there is always the trade-off between Short and Busy vs Tall and Dead. With a few exceptions like Manhattan.

Short and busy of course, but I'll nitpick over the "9-5" thing for office districts. On the West Coast at least, the masses tend to arrive around 7:00 to 8:30, and leave around 4:00-6:00 I'd say. Of course some work longer. These are really more like "7-6" districts.

We should ask ourselves, what is it that started our interest in skyscrapers in the first place?

Was it just the buildings themselves with no particular context?

Or was it that skyscrapers were beacons that symbolize special places that have many other exciting features?

To me, it is the latter.

I think if I was just growing up today, I wouldn't have the same interest in skyscrapers. Now, there are non-descript skyscrapers popping up in suburbs or other boring places.

Yes, that's definitely part of it. When I was growing up, if a city had a lot of skyscrapers it meant the city was both large and economically successful. Not every large, economically successful city had skyscrapers since there were some such places that lacked them. But these were mostly historic European cities and cities designed in that style such as DC. But it applied to every city that did have skyscrapers. Today, while this is still mostly true the perception has been eroded a bit. There just seems to be more exceptions now. There are many tall residential skyscrapers that aren't especially premium, and tall office and hotel buildings in the cities of poorer countries, sometimes built in part by governments. And while the total world population has grown, it seems like the ratio of tall buildings to people has grown faster.

Another important aspect is that in the late 19th and early-mid 20th century (well before my time), North America was the sole builder of such buildings. So there was a sort of self pride and perhaps some underlying feelings of superiority and exceptionalism attached to it. That sense of uniqueness started to get eroded when places like Australia and HK joined the club in the latter part of the 20th century, and it was eroded even further when the global flood gates opened in the 21st century. While one might take pride in being a member of a large club, there tends to be much more pride in belonging to a very small and exclusive club. So even if skyscrapers were still solely the domain of economically successful cities, it's not a very exclusive club any more and it's not a part of any unique self identity. Especially since NA hasn't had the tallest buildings for awhile.

I don't think so. At least here in Paris where land value is generally high (cause it's densely populated), if it wasn't for nimbyism, we could easily accomodate skyscrapers in neighborhoods that would draw lots of people and businesses, with plenty of hustle and bustle.

The actual problem is if we built skyscrapers with penthouses 1000 feet above the ground, they would be $5k per square foot deals, or even more.
In other words, only the ultra wealthy global establishment would buy it to speculate, without actually living there, just like they do in Manhattan.

Now some people, mostly of the left wing but not only wouldn't like the local market to be managed this way.

Otherwise, if a plot of land and your local market are worth it, building skyscrapers perfectly makes sense.
I mean, it only depends on needs.

In the US, they've got plenty of room. Population density is very low in North America as a whole. Some demographers even call it an empty continent.
That is not the case of Europe. So, as odd as it may sound, building tall buildings is actually more needed over here than in NA.