I haven’t studied this in general, but I have read a decent amount about the history of a couple cities, and based on those examples, can say with confidence that no modern city comes remotely close to the density that people would choose absent regulations keeping density down.
Tokyo today is less densely populated per square meter ground than late medieval Edo was, and late medieval Edo had no plumbing and basically no buildings taller than three stories. (I don’t think there are historical examples of cities with no height restrictions and no density restrictions because until 1885, nobody knew how to build a skyscraper, so height restrictions existed indirectly through limitations of engineering—technically, they still do.)
All of the evidence I’m familiar with suggests that people would choose to be very densely concentrated if it wasn’t for regulations limiting their density.
The favelas of Brazil are generally considered a stepping stone towards urban living by their residents. Most of their residents don’t live there because they need to; they live there because they would prefer to leave the places they came from (generally the countryside). There’s pretty strong evidence globally and historically that, when given the option, people deliberately choose urban poverty over rural poverty. People migrate from villages to slums, and they don’t move back. This is happening in Brazil, Kenya, Tibet, and India today. It happened historically in the United States and the U.K. This exhausts my knowledge of the history of human migration patterns, but I assume that the cases I don’t know anything about are roughly consistent with the places I do know something about.
Air pollution from density of residency is unlikely to ever be self-limiting. 19th century London had way worse air pollution than any modern city, caused by coal-burning urban factories being everywhere, not to mention that everyone also burned coal for heat in the winter. (They lacked the technology to track air pollution back then, but it was bad enough that it effectively limited life expectancy to 30, so pretty bad. Incidentally, high polluting urban factories were priced out of existing in urban settings more than they were regulated out of existing in them.) Most cities also end up having a high percentage of their residents primarily travel by not-car, because traffic gets to be horrendous in everywhere but the nimbyest of cities. Outside the U.S., most cities are also designed around encouraging people to get around by not-car.
Asian countries generally permit much higher urban density than Western countries, and this seems to greatly increase the percentage of people who prefer to live in urban settings, and more or less prevent suburbs from developing. (I assume this happens because people are much less likely to be priced out of being able to live in a city, and that the preference for living outside of a city mainly comes from costs.)
Population density and price per square foot of livable space are highly correlated. I strongly suspect the density causes the increase in price; pretty sure the increase in price doesn’t cause the increase in density.
By the way, Bloomberg News has a section called “Citylab” that is primarily focused on urban planning. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the subject.
strongly suspect the density causes the increase in price; pretty sure the increase in price doesn’t cause the increase in density.
That seems doubtful to me. It’s my impression that when people can only afford smaller flats because prices are high they are going to rent flats with less floorspace/inhabitant.
It’s likely both that high density produces economic opportunities that make it desireable to move to high density and the high price getting people to live more dense.
To add to this, building taller buildings is expensive, so it’s only justified when the land it’s built on is also expensive (since otherwise it’d be easier to just expand horizontally, and consumers are already willing to pay a high price to live there)
Building developers however often build buildings that are even larger then what you get if you optimize for price/m2. We can discuss how good decisions to build skyscrapers happen to be, but saying that there’s no justifications for building skyscrapers seems strange when private developers do build skyscrappers.
Huh? I’m not saying building skyscrapers doesn’t make sense. I’m saying it only makes sense in places where land is expensive, which is exactly what we see.
Land cost alone isn’t what justifies skyscrapers. Living in Trump tower costs more per square meter then living in nearby apartments that are located in smaller buildings.
Skyscrapers provide prestige and features like a reception on the ground-floor.
I haven’t studied this in general, but I have read a decent amount about the history of a couple cities, and based on those examples, can say with confidence that no modern city comes remotely close to the density that people would choose absent regulations keeping density down.
Tokyo today is less densely populated per square meter ground than late medieval Edo was, and late medieval Edo had no plumbing and basically no buildings taller than three stories. (I don’t think there are historical examples of cities with no height restrictions and no density restrictions because until 1885, nobody knew how to build a skyscraper, so height restrictions existed indirectly through limitations of engineering—technically, they still do.)
All of the evidence I’m familiar with suggests that people would choose to be very densely concentrated if it wasn’t for regulations limiting their density.
The favelas of Brazil are generally considered a stepping stone towards urban living by their residents. Most of their residents don’t live there because they need to; they live there because they would prefer to leave the places they came from (generally the countryside). There’s pretty strong evidence globally and historically that, when given the option, people deliberately choose urban poverty over rural poverty. People migrate from villages to slums, and they don’t move back. This is happening in Brazil, Kenya, Tibet, and India today. It happened historically in the United States and the U.K. This exhausts my knowledge of the history of human migration patterns, but I assume that the cases I don’t know anything about are roughly consistent with the places I do know something about.
Air pollution from density of residency is unlikely to ever be self-limiting. 19th century London had way worse air pollution than any modern city, caused by coal-burning urban factories being everywhere, not to mention that everyone also burned coal for heat in the winter. (They lacked the technology to track air pollution back then, but it was bad enough that it effectively limited life expectancy to 30, so pretty bad. Incidentally, high polluting urban factories were priced out of existing in urban settings more than they were regulated out of existing in them.) Most cities also end up having a high percentage of their residents primarily travel by not-car, because traffic gets to be horrendous in everywhere but the nimbyest of cities. Outside the U.S., most cities are also designed around encouraging people to get around by not-car.
Asian countries generally permit much higher urban density than Western countries, and this seems to greatly increase the percentage of people who prefer to live in urban settings, and more or less prevent suburbs from developing. (I assume this happens because people are much less likely to be priced out of being able to live in a city, and that the preference for living outside of a city mainly comes from costs.)
Population density and price per square foot of livable space are highly correlated. I strongly suspect the density causes the increase in price; pretty sure the increase in price doesn’t cause the increase in density.
By the way, Bloomberg News has a section called “Citylab” that is primarily focused on urban planning. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the subject.
That seems doubtful to me. It’s my impression that when people can only afford smaller flats because prices are high they are going to rent flats with less floorspace/inhabitant.
It’s likely both that high density produces economic opportunities that make it desireable to move to high density and the high price getting people to live more dense.
To add to this, building taller buildings is expensive, so it’s only justified when the land it’s built on is also expensive (since otherwise it’d be easier to just expand horizontally, and consumers are already willing to pay a high price to live there)
Building developers however often build buildings that are even larger then what you get if you optimize for price/m2. We can discuss how good decisions to build skyscrapers happen to be, but saying that there’s no justifications for building skyscrapers seems strange when private developers do build skyscrappers.
Huh? I’m not saying building skyscrapers doesn’t make sense. I’m saying it only makes sense in places where land is expensive, which is exactly what we see.
Land cost alone isn’t what justifies skyscrapers. Living in Trump tower costs more per square meter then living in nearby apartments that are located in smaller buildings.
Skyscrapers provide prestige and features like a reception on the ground-floor.