History of Extreme City Density thread

[jd3189]

I was looking at the Kowloon Walled City Thread when I came across this.

Originally Posted by Jesus in a Geo

Hell, I'm not sure if we could start an entirely new thread devoted to super-dense, tall, old or otherwise anomalous developments across the globe...

Places like....


Shibam, Yemen



Longyearbyen, Svalbard, The world's northernmost permanent town (Nearest city with over 1,000 people: Nordkapp, Norway, over 1000 miles away).

I don't know if such a thread exists, but we might as well have one regardless. Since the most extremes are found in the past, most pictures can be historic.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2139914/A-rare-insight-Kowloon-Walled-City.html




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Yard_of_a_tenement_at_Park_Ave._LOC_det.4a28182.jpg

[jd3189]

So no one give a crap about ultra dense places?

[KEVINphx]

Originally Posted by jd3189

So no one give a crap about ultra dense places?

There - happy?

[Segun]

I think we're all trying to decrease the risk of getting diabetes.

[MolsonExport]

A good idea for a thread. Much is contained in the Walled City of Kowloon thread (including Shibam, Yemen, etc.). I give a crap about density

[giallo]

Here are a handful of pictures I took a few months ago of Shanghai's density.


sh aerial 1 by matteroffact, on Flickr




sh aerial 2 by matteroffact, on Flickr




sh aerial 3 by matteroffact, on Flickr




sh aerial 4 by matteroffact, on Flickr




sh aerial 5 by matteroffact, on Flickr




sh aerial 6 by matteroffact, on Flickr




sh aerial 7 by matteroffact, on Flickr




sh aerial 8 by matteroffact, on Flickr




sh aerial 9 by matteroffact, on Flickr

[Austinlee]

Jesus, giallo. Just jesus....

Will there ever be another city built on earth that will be as massive and have as many highrises as Shanghai? I don't know how there could be. this will be humanities largest, craziest city in history.

[memph]

Here are the combined statistics of Shenzhen's urban villages for each district of the city as of 2004. The FSI includes non-built land like streets, alleys, yards and parks. The built space per capita includes commercial and industrial uses, although in Shenzhen's urban villages, 94% of the space was residential.

Futian
Population: 591,000
Land Area: 0.757 sq mi
Net Density: 781,000 ppsm
FSI: 3.42
Average Building Height 6.2 stories
Built Space per Capita: 122 sq ft


Luohu
Population: 767,000
Land Area: 0.911 sq mi
Net Density: 842,000 ppsm
FSI: 2.75
Average Building Height: 5.2 stories
Built Space per Capita: 91 sq ft


Nanshan
Population: 534,000
Land Area: 1.124 sq mi
Net Density: 475,000 ppsm
FSI: 2.47
Average Building Height: 4.6 stories
Built Space per Capita: 145 sq ft


Yantian
Population: 153,000
Land Area: 0.301 sq mi
Net Density: 508,000
FSI: 1.30
Average Building Height: 2.9 stories
Built Space per Capita: 71 sq ft (yikes!)


Baoan
Population: 1,827,000
Land Area: 17.097 sq mi
Net Density: 107,000 ppsm
FSI: 0.97
Average Building Height: 2.9 stories
Built Space per Capita: 253 sq ft


Longgang
Population: 1,241,000
Land Area: 15.911 sq mi
Net Density: 78,000 ppsm
FSI: 1.00
Average Building Height: 3.0 stories
Built Space per Capita: 357 sq ft

Source: www.itc.nl/library/papers_2012/phd/puhao.pdf‎

Much of the density is due to crowding, but nonetheless, 3.42 FSI would yield densities of 173,000 ppsm with 500 sf of residential and 50 sf of non-residential space per capita (more in line with developed world). And 3.42 FSI is the average for all the urban villages in Futian district, so some areas would be even denser. These are being demolished in large quantities, to be replaced by developments that will have higher built densities but lower population densities. Considering these were home to over 5 million people in 2004, depending on how much is demolished, this could lead to a substantial displacement of low income people.

A high density urban village in Futian
http://map.qq.com/#pano=10041004111116134713515&heading=30&pitch=-16&zoom=1

A more moderate density one in Longgang
http://map.qq.com/#pano=10041003110928130923150&heading=128&pitch=1&zoom=1

Luohu
http://map.qq.com/#pano=10041003110910122813466&heading=238&pitch=-1&zoom=1

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Austinlee

Will there ever be another city built on earth that will be as massive and have as many highrises as Shanghai? I don't know how there could be. this will be humanities largest, craziest city in history.

There already is. Sao Paolo has far more highrises than Shanghai.

And NYC and Hong Kong have far more skyscrapers than Shanghai.

But Shanghai might have the biggest concentration both highrises and skyscrapers, in that it's near the top in both measurements.

[Wizened Variations]

I would be curious about city densities historically.

For example, what was the city of Edo's (Tokyo) density in 1800 when the population may have been as high as 3,000,000? The footprint of the city was far smaller than today. I suspect the city complex covered somewhere around 100 square miles.

Rome, had a population considerably over 1,000,000 in the 2nd Century AD. A sizable portion of the city area was filled with monumental architecture and homes for the upper class. The citizen lower classes were crammed together. The city, again no formal measurements, seemed to have covered 60 to 80 square miles.

The city of Chang'an, modern Xi'an, the capital of the T'ang Dynasty had near a million people during the 8th Century. I have no measurements for the rectangular footprinted city, but, I suspect the area was around 50 square miles.

I suspect Beijing by 1800AD had at least 2,000,000 in what we, today, would consider a very small footprint.

Bagdad, around 1000AD, under the Abbasids, per

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1000baghdad.asp

may have had a population as high as 2,000,000.

While each of these cities was an imperial city, poorer population segments doubtlessly lived in tight quarters at very high population densities.

[memph]

Wendell Cox used this as a reference when he said X'ian at its greatest geographic expanse was about 30 square miles: http://www.amazon.ca/Chinas-Golden-Age-Everyday-Dynasty/dp/0195176650

That means a density of around 40,000 ppsm.

It wouldn't be difficult to imagine densities of over 100,000 ppsm without even taking into account crowding for the poorer districts.

The densest blocks of Dubrovnik for example probably have about 80% of the space dedicated to buildings, 20% to streets, and no yards. For the walled city overall, maybe around 50% is buildings. Assuming an average building height of 3 stories and 500 sf of space per resident, you get 84,000 ppsm. Most of the ancient cities would have had a fair bit less than 500 sf per resident.

What are you basing the 60-80 square miles of Rome on? Most maps suggest something more around 3-4 square miles.

Even the wealthy parts of these ancient cities were likely fairly dense though. The homes and palaces were large and grand no doubt, but also house far more than a typical modern family. You had large families with many children, and a great deal of servants/slaves. While there were great big rooms and courtyards, the structural densities were still quite high. And for instance, you probably had one large kitchen for the large wealthy family and the army of servants. The children of the wealthy likely still shared bedrooms. You might have had one or two large rooms to accomodate guests, but when you consider how many people lived there (including servants) it wasn't that much.

The amount of space dedicated to open space was typically quite low. Streets were very narrow, yards rare (a few courtyards, mainly for the wealthy), a few market squares, and a few spaces around palaces for parades, colliseums and such.

[Wizened Variations]

Originally Posted by memph

Wendell Cox used this as a reference when he said X'ian at its greatest geographic expanse was about 30 square miles: http://www.amazon.ca/Chinas-Golden-Age-Everyday-Dynasty/dp/0195176650

That means a density of around 40,000 ppsm.

It wouldn't be difficult to imagine densities of over 100,000 ppsm without even taking into account crowding for the poorer districts.

The densest blocks of Dubrovnik for example probably have about 80% of the space dedicated to buildings, 20% to streets, and no yards. For the walled city overall, maybe around 50% is buildings. Assuming an average building height of 3 stories and 500 sf of space per resident, you get 84,000 ppsm. Most of the ancient cities would have had a fair bit less than 500 sf per resident.

What are you basing the 60-80 square miles of Rome on? Most maps suggest something more around 3-4 square miles.

Just eyeballing it from how the Tiber River border fits on a modern map of Rome.

see http://thebournechronicles.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/rome-map-1902.jpg look at the scale. Also, the city extended a good distance outside the formal boundaries. Perhaps 30 square miles is a better yardstick (around ~80 km^2). Regardless, the densities among the poorer citizen segments were very high.

What I find fascinating is how much space in today's Chinese cities is taken up by roads, rail tracks, commercial, etc. Pre-auto (and pre-train cities) had equally high (if not higher) densities and far less vertical development.

[jd3189]

^^^ I found some models of Ancient Rome and Baghdad. Gives a sense of density.

Rome

http://schools.nashua.edu/myclass/lavalleev/Art%20History%20Pictures/ch10/index10.html


http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=124677


Baghdad

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17160660


I'm thinking of starting another thread to post pictures of ancient and historic cities in the past through models, portraits, and pictures. I wonder if this thread could suffice on its own or should I make another outside of city discussions.

[Wizened Variations]

Great idea!

[Crawford]

Imperial Rome was quite small geographically, yet extremely dense, and with a large population.

The Vatican is outside the boundary of Imperial Rome, so you can see that it was nowhere near 60 square miles. The Vatican is easy walking distance to the very center of Rome.

[chris08876]

Shanghai is nuts. A lot of China's cities are. Yet, in the end, they may have tons of high rises but they all tend to look the same. Still, a great example of density.

Might I add Barcelona too. That is one city that is very dense. I was shocked how packed it was when I visited and was on top of a mountain overlooking the city. Too condensed!

[chris08876]

Barcelona, Spain:


http://gingert.net/images/barcelona-aerial-02.jpg


http://aerialphotoimage.com/images/Barcelona1.jpg


http://www.pierluigisurace.it/imagerie/images/aatw/DOT_Spain_Barcelona_Aerial_View_1.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8453/8048176356_105d2f4da1.jpg

^^^^^
Its kinda like Washington DC on steroids

[chris08876]

I guess I'll do NYC, a great example of extreme density. Not to mention the daytime population of the city is insane. When you count residents, hospital patients, students, visitors, workers, and other officials, the population swells to close to 4 million in Manhatten. The other boroughs by themselves, Queens, Brookyln, and the Bronx are very dense as well.

Here are some pics which I searched for to try to show some extreme density.
Also, some of these are outdated as they are missing some of the towers that recently went up. But for sake of density demostration lets accept it:



http://cdn.c.photoshelter.com/img-get/I0000hGaUGkXPg_Q/s/620/upper-east-side-landscape.jpg


http://cdn.c.photoshelter.com/img-get/I0...nhattan-Bronx-New-York-City-AHLB3023.jpg


http://2thebestimages.com/images/user_images/ForeverJason/Bronx_New_York_2.jpg


http://www.buzzhunt.co.uk/wp-content/2013/07/Manhattan-in-the-Grand-Canyon-02.jpg


http://politicalbooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/urban-density-policy-books.jpg


These are very nice



http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3369/3411660103_c66d6e6603_o.jpg


http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/4051/small4xmto3.jpg

Here are some of my favorite landing videos into LaGuardia which really show the city, and all the boroughs. Queens is dense as hell!

• Video Link

This next one really shows of the Bronx, and Brooklyn

• Video Link

=================

[memph]

Originally Posted by Wizened Variations

Just eyeballing it from how the Tiber River border fits on a modern map of Rome.

see http://thebournechronicles.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/rome-map-1902.jpg look at the scale. Also, the city extended a good distance outside the formal boundaries. Perhaps 30 square miles is a better yardstick (around ~80 km^2). Regardless, the densities among the poorer citizen segments were very high.

What I find fascinating is how much space in today's Chinese cities is taken up by roads, rail tracks, commercial, etc. Pre-auto (and pre-train cities) had equally high (if not higher) densities and far less vertical development.

That map of Rome shows an area of about 4 square miles. Just use acme planimeter, comparing reference points on the map to the satellite image. By the way, 1 square mile is 2.59 square kilometres.

Chinese cities also have a lot of open space, both private and public, as well as industry. Industry makes sense, people today have a lot more stuff than did ancient Romans do. Plus, not only do Chinese cities make stuff for the Chinese, the also make much of the stuff that the West owns too. And the industry is not evenly distributed, being mainly concentrated in cities on the coast like Shanghai and Shenzhen. Not only that but in ancient cities, a lot of the stuff was make in homes, not in factories.

The transport part is not surprising either. Much of it is again, to move all those goods between factories and their markets (which are more faraway on average than in ancient times). Also if you have two cities that are the same density, but one is bigger, the bigger one will typically have longer commuting distances, especially if the transport capacity is increased in an attempt to keep up with demand. Finally, it's also not surprising that Chinese cities have more open space, since having very high building coverage with 3-4 storey buildings is one thing, but with 20-50 storey buildings is completely different. Setbacks are needed to allow light to make its way down to the lower units.

I also think today's Chinese cities were less cramped. Although the more cramped urban villages of Shenzhen (see above) were probably similarly cramped to ancient cities, the newer high-rises are much more spacious. The urban villages of Longgang were relatively spacious - and those are 2004 numbers, China's GDP per capita quadrupled since so it's probably gotten more spacious now.

[The North One]

Wasn't Rome the densest place that ever existed? Like not even modern cities of today are as dense as Rome was.