Quote:
Originally Posted by BobbyMucho
Right, and the free market approach does a great job putting aesthetics, quality or safety over profit and ego.
I have no doubt that your idea would lead to a mess on the scale of what London is suffering from, with their totally unchained, wild looking highrise boom; worse yet, China and their 'loose' building requirements.
The approval process is unnecessarily slow (nearly everyone agrees), but before we suggest gutting practical regulations or standards, we should work to streamline that process reasonably and prob mitigate the onslaught of absurd appeals by the public.
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I think it does. I think you get a more interesting variety of projects with a more diverse appearance rather than all buildings looking almost the same as in so much new construction in San Francisco, built to satisfy the tastes of a few people in the Planning Dept. And I think the marketplace would prod developers to compete on aesthetics and quality. Some may go for schlock--and they will have trouble selling or renting in their projects.
I think London's buildings are, on the whole, far more interesting that San Francisco's. But I also think it doesn't much matter what you or I as individuals think. In a city of a million people, there are a million opinions about what is attractive or desirable.