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> Why are they not being built in these places?

Perhaps because a tall residential building in a tourist spot is an eyesore.

People go there to see something scenic, not more of what they have at home, or worse.




> Perhaps because a tall residential building in a tourist spot is an eyesore.

If you build it like an eyesore, it will be an eyesore, yes. Here is a multi-story building that I lived as a student in and it housed another 10k: https://www.ruseducation.in/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/LOMON...

But I agree that building glass+concrete rectangles is a not a great idea for tourist spots (or anywhere, really).


Your example has one thing that those condos don't have: glorious socialist realism waste of space - and I mean it in a good way.

When they were young, my grandparents moved into a whole district built from scratch for the purpose of housing workers from a nearby steelmill.

Communism notwithstanding, the district is amazingly well planned and - what's dearly missing in modern, hyper-optimized construction - sufficiently spread apart.


> Your example has one thing that those condos don't have: glorious socialist realism waste of space - and I mean it in a good way.

Exactly! If you rise up enough, it becomes possible to have green zones around these big buildings and make living actually enjoyable.

On the other end of the spectrum is Hong Kong and most of Manhattan - I don't look forward to living there, even if some condos are really nice inside.


One of the sisters is a great example for sure, and they were in my mind as I read your previous comment but I cant think of any others that come even close. Would love to see other examples.


If your urban planning is going to prioritize giving tourists scenic views rather than building affordable homes for the people that live and work in the city, then you shouldn't be surprised if the city turns into an giant museum/resort where only the wealthy can afford a decent QoL (because they're the only ones who can financially compete with the tourists).


Here's the thing: with the proliferation of AirBnB and real-estate-as-an-investment that's already the case regardless of density.

In my corner of the world people move out of large cities not because they enjoy driving so much, but because they don't have the credit score for anything within city limits

Space and access to sunlight are also components of quality of life and you have neither in very dense housing.


>but because they don't have the credit score for anything within city limits

That's because there's not enough housing in the city limits.

>Space and access to sunlight are also components of quality of life and you have neither in very dense housing.

That's not true, adding a few more sky scrapers increases the amount of space for people and does not impact the amount of sunlight people can enjoy.

Cities can also do things like add more rail lines, so people can commute from further away -- which also increases the amount of space for people.


Exactly. "Hey, let's build a dime-a-dozen twenty-story glassy tower next to all these centuries-old churches and open-air markets."


"Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded."


Paris has one of the highest population densities of any city on earth even with buildings capped at 6 stories. What an eyesore!




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