Quote:
Originally Posted by Kumdogmillionaire
And yet it is also this building style that leads to these cities have astronomical housing prices since it leads to running out space quickly and then rampant NIMBY-ism(San Fran is the best example in the US). If Chicago wants to avoid this they will allow high rises to be built in many areas. Your obsession with Europe blinds you from its faults. Chicago ain't perfect, but those places aren't either.
Now, Chicago isn't about to run out of land, so it's a bit premature of a complaint for me to make, but as global warming causes mass emigrations inland and Chicago becomes the most important city in the US by 2100 that problem will arise.
Only small minds think in terms of their own lives, that's why Burnham is still such a monumental figure for us today. He planned hundreds of years down the line with his city planning for us
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We definitely have a ton of land, but there is a more limited amount of land in desirable areas. Building short and squat means we burn up land faster and gentrification then pushes more people out of their homes and into further, fringe neighborhoods.
Building taller and denser will help keep people from getting pushed out of their homes, and overall keep housing prices affordable in the city. Clearly, we aren't going to be building high rises everywhere (nor should we), but in certain instances it should be encouraged, particularly anywhere near CTA/Metra stations (TOD), as well as along major commercial intersections.
Lol, while global warming worst case scenarios are thankfully a little while off (or maybe not, depending on how quickly we curb our usage of fossil fuels), we probably are poised to be a net beneficiary of rising sea levels. Of the 10 largest cities in the US (measured by metro population), 7 are coastal and the 2 that arent (Dallas and Atlanta) are in the South and may become unbearable to live in. Being on the shores of one fifth of the world's freshwater is also a huge benefit.