
The Economics of Skyscraper Height - keiferski
https://buildingtheskyline.org/economics-of-skyscraper-height-series/
======
renewiltord
All new skyscrapers will come only in high-growth places, not high-wealth
places. IMHO that's because high-wealth places will settle down to generalized
universal veto and stagnation. High-growth places haven't yet had a chance for
established players to stall everything.

The reason why we won't have NYC or SF looking like Star Trek¹ is that the
people are already wealthy and they chose to live here in the way it is so the
people who would want Star Trek SF won't come to present-day SF to make it
into Star Trek SF. Star Trek SF may be some unassuming town in America or
(more likely) one of the emerging economies: maybe East Asia, but maybe if
African nations capture their demographic dividend (unlikely IMHO) maybe them.

¹ I will have someone LongBets this on my behalf if someone wants to take the
other side. San Francisco will never be like Star Trek's hyper-developed San
Francisco. Willing to nail down specifics too.

EDIT: Maybe I should make an exception for high-wealth places with
dictators/monarchs. There they can bypass any normal human process.

EDIT 2: No bets. Bets are off. Looks like I'd just lose money on this one
because of NYC.

~~~
jariel
??? NYC is full of skyscrapers.

It may not have 'ultra high' buildings, but those exist for different reasons
and the economics are different.

SF has earthquakes and a shifty foundation which is material.

~~~
renewiltord
Right, my claim is that NYC will not get many more tall towers. It's settling
down into a state where there will be few more.

~~~
marc__1
I believe your hypothesis is not entirely correct. 9 of the 10 tallest
buildings in NYC are to be completed between 2000 and 2021.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_N...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_New_York_City)

In Europe, if you exclude Russia from the top 20 tallest buildings, the UK
(2), Germany (2) and Spain (2) have the tallest buildings, with the UK and
Spain buildings built in the 2000s.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_E...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Europe)

~~~
renewiltord
Welp! Thank you! Boy am I glad no one fleeced me on the bet, eh?

~~~
jamiek88
You have a refreshing way of accepting when you are wrong, it is a joy to
witness on these here pipes.

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jackdaw12
This has to be the most tortured definition of a histogram: "Now imagine that
you were a giant and could “harvest” all the world’ skyscrapers and put them
into a jumbo pile—like a child might make a pile of sticks of various lengths.
Now in our little game, we pick up each skyscraper (stick) and measure its
height. Then we place it in one of several bins or buckets. The first bucket
will contain buildings that range from 150 to 199 meters. The second contains
buildings 200 to 248 and so on. The last bucket ranges from 788 to 836 meters,
and which contains the Burj Khalifa at 0.828 km tall."

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siculars
The commercial real estate collapse we are just at the beginning of will
definitely limit skyscraper height.

See Pinterest paying $100mm to break their lease in a new development in SF.

See AOC limiting new AMZN business, major banks distributing their work force
in NYC.

~~~
sthnblllII
Im curious to know why this would be downvoted. Everyone has spent the last 6
months talking about the end of offices and “work from home”. Can someone
elaborate?

~~~
refurb
My hypothesis is that the whole work from home will fizzle out pretty quickly
for most people, with the exception of a few tech companies.

Anecdotally, my company did a survey (10k+ employees) and the vast majority
didn't want full-time work from home in perpetuity.

I think it works well for some industries and functions, but it's an absolute
cluster for others. Add in the inevitable "COL adjustment" for people who live
in LCOL areas, it will be a few percentage of employees who make a permanent
change.

Once Covid is a thing of the past, we'll see the vast majority of people
return to work in an office - likely with a lot more "work from home"
flexibility, but still an expectation that they are in the office for some
percentage of their work week.

Just my 2 cents. I could be entirely wrong.

~~~
sien
One of the big four Australian banks is planing to have halve their CBD real
estate in Australia in the next few years.

This is because they have found WFH to be so successful.

~~~
erklik
> This is because they have found WFH to be so successful.

I am honestly somewhat wary of this. It seems like execs saw the dollar signs
flashing and are starting this, yet we barely have any data on this affects
levels of productivity. It hasn't been that long for them to get that data.

~~~
llampx
I agree. For one thing, relationships that were built in-person, around the
watercooler and physically present lunches, are different than relationships
which started out online and zoom-only.

I've had remote-only jobs and jobs where I went into an office every day, and
I have many more pleasant memories and longer-lasting relationships from the
jobs which had an onsite component.

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mimixco
Vegas isn't mentioned anywhere in the article (which focuses on NYC) but it
seems particularly relevant. Why do I suspect that, had more effort gone into
computing the "economic height" of some Vegas hotels and condos, they would
have been built smaller -- or not all all (Fontainebleu/The Drew, I'm looking
at you. Resorts World is in this bucket, too.)

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natcombs
>> Contrary to popular belief, most skyscrapers have a strong economic
rational.

I doubt there is a popular belief that says "tall skyscrapers do not have an
economic rational". Really weird starting point to make this article

~~~
jpxw
Yep, also should be “rationale” rather than “rational”.

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Havoc
And then covid comes along and says

>How are you going to get elevators up beyond 5 floors and social distance?

~~~
renewiltord
Ask the folks from Taipei, I suppose. Since they've solved this one.

~~~
oska
They solved it by almost completely stopping Covid-19 at the border. So while
there are indeed many lessons to learn from Taiwan, I doubt they are the
people to look to for how to deal with large numbers of undetected infected
persons using elevators.

~~~
renewiltord
Perhaps the Koreans or the Japanese, then. Or perhaps we can wait ten years
for a New York Times article describing a scientific paper, billed "The
unreasonable effectiveness of masking to fight last decade's pandemic".

It could perhaps start with a few chapters on how "When I was 18, I'd planned
to take the summer off to go to the Pyrenees" followed by how the author
rarely ever fell sick.

Halfway through, there'll be some text about how "But the culture of mask
wearing in Asia led to far lower viral loads for those exposed, scientists
say, allowing them to fight off the disease. Few, if any, actually fell ill.
But in my hometown..." and then some folksy take on what their hometown is
like. A small town in Ohio is a good one.

"By the time scientists had realized the value of face masks, that hometown
had been ravaged by both disease and closures". Now you can insert some tale
about a local diner that was open for 50 years and now had to close.

Approximately 1400 words later you can quote a few papers that revealed that
with universal masking risk of infection is remarkably low. It will be an
unprecedented discovery. Then a few Taboola ads at the bottom about how "This
new garment will take the world by storm" with someone wearing a mask.

And then we can discuss it on HN. If you remember me then, make sure to link
to this comment.

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woodpanel
I think much of the "popular belief" against skyscrapers is unknowingly
influenced by reactionary thinkers of the 20th century's second half.

The shrillest thinking but/thus the most influential is this moronic idea of
phallus symbols. According to which, they are a power tool for the patriachy,
which albeit being so powerful the patriachy is simoultaniously so immature
that it can't refrain from playing with its genitalia in public.

The fact that this phallus idiocy is virtually non-rebuked in academia and
still considered established, tells you about the influence on popular belief
the reactionaries have had.

On the contrary, skyscrapers are a sign of a culture's virtousness. Which is
why dictators (and also immature policy makers [1]) throughout modern history
try to emulate the skylines of these cities [2], but never achieve it [3].
Their artificial skylines either look like an experiment gone bad [4, 5],
consist of only a few (one) tall buildings [6] or are confined to some "new
business district" on the outskirts of their capital [7, 8].

There are other moronic reactionary, influential, ideas like the one of
"clouding" ("Verschattung"), according to which because of skyscrapers we're
either dying from Vitamin D deficiency or because of sadness because we can't
see our monuments anymore. This is ignoring the fact that a 2 story building
is already enough to cast a shadow upon you, thus in most old towns you were
already unable to see any landmarks and already were "clouded" (in warmer
areas even intentionally).

On the contrary, while most skyscrapers will look functional, many achieve a
democratization of identity, in that they enable more people see their city's
icons.

[1]
[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikingturm](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikingturm)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sisters_(Moscow)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sisters_\(Moscow\))

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryugyong_Hotel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryugyong_Hotel)

[4]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_Pearl_Tower](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_Pearl_Tower)

[5] [http://www.globalpostmark.com/wp-
content/uploads/2011/03/201...](http://www.globalpostmark.com/wp-
content/uploads/2011/03/2011-March-China_0410.jpg)

[6]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabemba_Tower](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabemba_Tower)

[7]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_City_(businnes_center)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_City_\(businnes_center\))

[8] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nur-
Sultan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nur-Sultan)

~~~
082349872349872
TIL "yonic architecture" is a productive image search term.

    
    
        Not sure if parametricist cat pics
             =.=
        are any improvement on Sphynx pics

------
627467
If humans are to minimize impact on the rest of the ecosystem I don't see how
that is compatible with NO SKYCRAPERS. In long run I think it will make sense
both economically and in reducing human footprint on earth[0].

Making high density living bearable and even desirable that's the art we need
(and millenia of urbanization has been about) to master.

[0] I'm aware that dense cities are not automatically more sustainable. But I
suspect is easier to achieve sustainability due to proximity.

~~~
joe_the_user
_I 'm aware that dense cities are not automatically more sustainable._

Seems like you're under-selling density here.

A dense city may not be automatically sustainable but it seems logical that
denseness would be necessary to create a much more sustainable city than
today.

Oppositely, there is degree of sprawl is almost automatically unsustainable,
in ecological and economic terms.

~~~
refurb
_there is degree of sprawl is almost automatically unsustainable_

I'm not sure we'd ever reach that point in the developed world. Populations
have already peaked (it's only going up because of immigration) and sprawl is
self-limiting because who wants to do a 4 hour daily commute?

~~~
Meandering
I think he is referring to collateral sprawl. Meaning, that density could be
assumed to relatively increase property values and increase demand for support
infrastructure. Businesses and people seek out low-priced space within the
region. So, a high density area will spur unintended sprawl which might lead
to other issues.

~~~
refurb
But businesses seeking out low cost areas is probably unavoidable.

You could build a super dense city, but a limited population is going to want
to live there - people with kids, etc.

Unless you’re willing to force them to live in a city, some people are going
to seek out low cost areas and be a source of employees for the companies
doing the same.

