As a side note, I feel like I was more charitable to skyscrapers than I should have been, as if they're a genuine attempt at trying to improve a city, and not just corporate dick-measuring contests and/or real estate speculation schemes.

I can honestly say I have never built a skyscraper.

This man is pissing off an architecture community I didn’t think existed

I'm a HVAC engineer. I used to be a skyscraper fan, but having worked on a few of these buildings I've concluded that they are not good for the urban environment, compared to buildings under 10 stories. In addition to what Adam said: 1. The systems for these buildings are highly complicated, which is good for the prestige(and paychecks) of the engineers working on it, but smaller buildings can use much simpler, and efficient out of the box designs. Every tall skyscraper is essentially a prototype, which means it's systems are more prone to failures, and designs are more likely to contain mistakes. 2. They are large, inflexible single use structures. A smaller building can easily be repurposed into something else, and if necessary knocked down. Skyscrapers, on the other hand, are nearly impossible to demolish @at least not without serious health and safety issues), and very difficult to repurpose as needs change. That office space can only ever be used as office space, and further more you'll be limited by the foresight of engineers and architects living 50 years ago. Good luck finding spare parts for the chiller plant whose manufacturer dissappeared 30 years ago. Heaven help you if you want to do a green retrofit. 3. They are inefficient, you would be surprised how little usable floor space these towers have. Over half the floor area is taken up with elevators, structural supports and utilities. On a building under 10 stories this is usually less than a quarter, on a 6 story walk up maybe less than a 10th. Skyscrapers suffer from diseconomies of scale, and the main reason they're built is to satisfy the egoes of the wealthy men who own them, and the architects and engineers who design them.

My main concern with skyscrapers is their long term maintenance. Imagine having to renovate, or, god forbid, demolish, a 50 story building that's closely packed with other 50 story buildings. Even if this is possible, it's likely very costly and would be a logistical nightmare. Same goes for any structural defects or failures that can occur with a building as big as a skyscraper, eg. millenium tower in san francisco.

That's why we need the 255 block height limit

Singaporian city planner: "Ok we have two choices: Skyscrapers or invade Malasya to get more land".

The "deserted offices" part is SO true, I live in a city that has a huge office town, the centre is literally 99% office buildings and mabye fast food for the office workers, so by day it is VERY busy, and by night it is one if the most dangerous parts of town do to there not being a single person there except mabye a mugger and a junkie

New idea: turn every skyscraper into a giant garage to store everyone's cars and turn every carpark into a building. This would cost billions, help no one and waste everyone's time since cars can no longer be parked in more than 10 places per city.

I think we should build 200 story hyper towers where residents are brought to their floors by hyperlifts and they commute to work by star ship from the roof

"in 99% of cases, you don't even need to go above 10 floors" Me, living on the 13th floor of an apartment complex *looks around nervously*

Also, skyscrapers are absolute disaster zones in case of fire. There's a reason why over 300 firefighters died on 9/11.

Problem #3: Alienation - I live in a small town and I don't even know my neighbors even after 20 years. This has nothing to do with high-rise buildings nor solved by any different size of building.

Because if we keep scraping the sky, it's going to get all scratched up.

There's another problem: wind I'm not talking about the skyscraper having to withstand the power of the wind, but the building blocking the wind or worse funneling it. The prior can cause nasty stagnant air and the latter winds that can knock you over.

I’d love to see you revisit this, comparing the Burj to the Pentagon, which is the largest office building on Earth, and is only five stories, and contains a five acre (two hectare) park in the center. Also, it is possible to move between any two points in the Pentagon in under ten minutes, in spite of it being nearly half a kilometer across.

One more thing: They are an absule DEATHTRAP in case there is a fire or something similar. Up to the fifth/sixth story, firefighters can easily rescue you via. windows, balconies etc. but above that - good luck. Additionally, they have to CLIMB THE STAIRS to get to the fire so actually fighting the fire will be delayed substatially.

"5 10-stories commie blocks was all it took to beat world's tallest skyscraper" I am dying of laughter...

One problem not mentioned here is that providing basic utilities becomes significantly more complicated and expensive when you build really tall. That's why skyscrapers need to waste a cosiderable amount of their floor space for mechanical floors solely dedicated to that purpose.

Having lived in China for 3 years on the top (31st) floor of my building, there was plenty of interaction in the public square below, and the roof of the building used for gardens, clothes drying, and picnics. Given the population density of China, they are probably justified in going higher, but still, 20-25 floors is still very nice as long as there are actual public spaces around them.

"Skyscrapers can only be used for two things" Here in Japan they have pools and baths, almost entire skyscrapers just for restaurants, cafes and shopping, karaoke, music schools, doctor clinics, offices, english schools - all kinds of stores. Literally anything. Your advantages of normal height housing is objective and effective as europe shows, but your hate for skyscrapers seems mostly subjective. I think skyscrapers are beautiful and inspiring. ESPECIALLY when interwoven with old architecture. London has some of that Tokyo Marunouchi etc has some of that.

Tokyo is the worst example you can give of this. There is literally no space here than to go up. Those skyscrapers are literally just office spaces.

As a civil engineer I'd like to point out this: - Everything above 8 stories becomes exponentially harder. Moment forces from the wind have a longer arm to the support in the ground. More weight leads to more structural support to carry it, leading to more weight. Elevator cables are also a pain. But that last one is a problem with a solution in a not so distant future. - Thing is however that I don't necessarily agree with the sentiment though. I can live with sky scrapers being packed away from city centres like at La Defense in Paris or Moscow city. Overall I prefer density over sprawling cities. The Burj Khalifa ground is not a good metric. It's of course a vanity project. Many other skyscrapers are due to high prices on the ground they stand and do not waste that much ground space. - Some institutions, such as hospitals, require patients to get from one department to another asap. Long hallways kill people. Lifts are much faster. Hence why many highrises now being built in my otherwise flat Denmark are hospitals. - The problem I see unadressed here are sunlight, wind and public infrastructure. Skyscrapers take sunlight from the surroundings, winds can be redirected in bad ways (or good ways) in addition to affecting the building and its occupants in several ways. And most importantly, you need a good and robust public infrastructure to haul a huge amount of people during rush hours, though that's always true no matter what. So the most important factor as to whether skyscrapers are good or bad is how well they perform and the city plan. They can be expensive when it comes to price, but as long as there's a buyer, that shouldn't matter.

To your point about alienation, a friend of mine lives on the 27th floor, visiting him is always a treat because it's much easier to go out, have fun and socialise. Even though I live in the idealistic layout you had in mind, 2 floors Max per building, spread out a lot, I've got 2 parks and 3 sport complexes near me. Ironically, it takes me longer to get places compared to my friend because of just how accessible his area is. Going to the grocery store takes him 5 minutes when it takes me 20. Socialising at the park is hardly a thing anymore, nobody wants people approaching them, it's not seen as a "social" space, just a public one. Compare that to the clubs my friend has access to, whose whole point is to socialise. Maybe these experiences are purely anecdotal to me and don't reflect the experience most people have, but I was fairly shocked listening to the alienation point because of just how different it has been in my experience.

There's a skyscraper in my region that is completely isolated. There's just a regular area with a bunch of one-story buildings with random franchises, then in the middle of it you have a random skyscraper that can be seen for miles. No idea why it's there, never been inside it nor do I know what's inside it.

Issue is mostly spacing, when you can’t build outward like in NYC or Hong Kong, you have to build up

Japan's 80% mountain, so building up makes sense for them in a lot of circumstances

This was all super interesting! I agree with a lot of it. Unfortunately, I live in Australia, and here urban sprawl is a huge problem. A good way of having more people density, while still allowing people to have decent apartment size is building vertically. I honestly think that building vertically could be quite useful in OZ, but they don’t need to be ridiculously tall

The Burj Khalifa is not built for efficiency but for prestige. Better comparison would be against generic NYC sky scraper.

What many people forget is that "Village Houses", just as every other "Khrushchev-style" building, were intended as temporary accommodations, because it took longer to build better, structurally safer, more "traditional" buildings. "Khrushchev-style" buildings are rated for about 50 years of service, and some are already starting to cave in. Many of them were pretty much supposed to be demolished, inspected and rebuilt by this point.

My city has around 100 skyscrapers, and the skyline at night is stunning. It is an awesome sight to see, all those lights on the horizon soaring into the sky.

“Houses shouldn’t go higher than 10 storeys, cities have enough space” Micro states, Hong Kong and Macau:

I'm not convinced about the alienation argument. With high speed lifts and communal areas built at strategic points (even "sky gardens"), a lot of that can be overcome. What you didn't mention, which to me is more of an issue is fire safety and obvious issues like 9/11 where big buildings can become a target for terrorism and take ages to evacuate. There's also the issue of shadows being cast over the ground and wind tunnels. The other thing you mentioned which I'm not sure about is you put those 5 buildings on top of the Burj Khalifa to make the point that you can fit just as much people in low rise buildings, but the area covered by those buildings was much larger than the actual structure itself, so your figures don't seem to make sense to me. In an area like NYC, you get many towers very close together. Those are definitely going to have a higher density than if you built everything at 10 stories. But what I do agree with, is that if you built taller in the inner suburbs, you would then need less density in the urban core, and would spread people out more, which would put less pressure on services at the centre. The U.S. definitely suffers from a lack of mid-rise development. I feel like Europe is doing much better in this regard.

I was waiting to hear how this could be solved by building a train instead.

I used to live in a cool high rise dorm where every 3 floors there was a communal space that you could access via ramps / stairs / elevators. I liked it. We could do massive movie nights and study groups. But high rise complexes aren't built like dorms...

I just moved from a 40 story tower and it was great, it was part of 4 towers that connected at the bottom and first 2 floors had so many amenities, a 25m pool 2 gyms movie room game room... Etc. it was really fun to invite people over. And at the bottom of the building there were usual business hair, dentist,dry cleaners, coffee shop, 3 restorants, and a 3 fast food places.

One point though, you mention the view gets old quickly. In my experience, it doesn't. In 10 years I live on 16th floor, looking out the window has been one thing that never failed me.

I’ll just add that I grew up in an 18 story building and I don’t remember anyone there being alienated or isolated. Pretty much everyone knew each other and socialized. I believe the key element was that most families had children of all ages so children playing together in the park at ground level was the element that reduced isolation and brought people together.

There is also the small matter of security: skyscrapers are difficult to evacuate in case of emergency. And as we have recent historic examples, are a target for attacks.

In my experience #3 is the opposite. Residential towers are some of the best places to know your neighbours due to shared amenities and a feeling of solidarity. Also, in less dense spread out places finding people with the same interests close to you is harder due to there being less interesting places to go and less people overall.

First I was confused by the environmental impact bit when I read “they make twice as much carbon emissions as low rises.” Thinking, “Well of course, but they’re over three times as tall. Isn’t that a improvement?” Then I read the sentence in the article that said that all those statistics are measured per square meter of floor. So it’s not that a skyscraper uses twice as much energy while having three or more times the space of a low rise. It’s that a skyscraper has twice the energy requirement of an equivalent amount of low rises…. Ouch…

I live in a surburb. No one talks to each other, the park is filled with individual people or couples, not active dialogue, this idea that people will naturally come together and form some vibrant community is naive at best. The only places that do operate like that from what I've experienced travelling into the city, is large apartment buildings, with 20-25 stories, where they have a pool, courtyard and other communal spaces.

It makes zero sense to build even a single "skyscraper" until you have made every single building in an area 5-10 stories tall in a given area at least.

I work with real estate, and unfortunately everything you said is true, and there is still the problem of lack of light, lack of ventilation, reverberation from noise pollution, and concentration of carbon dioxide due to building walls, constant destruction of infrastructure structure of the streets because of the excess weight of the concrete trucks, after all, hell never ends. they could do what they did in Derinkuyu a city below ground. but modern underground buildings can be expensive but they would certainly be a good form of protection against natural catastrophe. and there would be a lot of area left for squares and leisure, trees drastically increasing the quality of life of people who live not only in the building but in the city.

Number 5: Skyscrapers are death traps. A firelighter once told me the safest building height is no higher than 11 stories.

My first time disagreeing with you. I live in Seoul, which has arguably the best public transit in the world. It has a lot green spaces as well. And finally it has tall apartment buildings. I myself have lived in three buildings between 15-20 stories tall. The elevator does not take 10 minutes here, maybe it does in Western countries, im not sure…but here it does not. I am also a tutor, so I’ve been to many of my students houses which are up to 30 floors in the air. The elevators in those buildings are insanely fast. Seriously 10 seconds to go 20 floors. Also most apartment complexes like that have green space completely surrounding it and even large city parks nearby. Seoul is also famous for community mountains. Usually not tall, apartment complexes will surround the local hill or mountain that has walking trails throughout. Like, I see some of your issues, but Seoul solves most of them. Also my apartments have not been that expensive. It is common for poor people to live in taller apartment complexes. Now finally, main thing. Seriously I think this height is necessary. Not only are most apartment complexes in Korea usually 10-15 floors, and 15-20 in more packed areas, but…that’s 90% of the housing in the area. When your city is overcrowded, you got to have taller buildings or you just can’t fit everyone. And these apartments aren’t huge by the way, by North American standards, even rich Koreans live in small apartments. Maybe some of the things you say could be true in less densely populated areas, but I really think Seoul simply doesn’t have the land area to build smaller. Edit : I see you addressed in the last 30 seconds [i should learn to always finish every second before commenting lol] that you are okay with them if other options are exhausted, when I would go ahead and say they were in many areas of Seoul. Trust me, Korean land owners want to build cheaply for example.

I was wondering what your take would be when I saw this. “Skyscrapers are efficient housing right?” medium floor count buildings spread out horizontally makes a lot of more sense, in a world of endless suburb it can be hard to initially see how skyscrapers are a worse idea when making the comparison of suburb to skyscraper.

Well, while mostly agreeing to the said, there is still a big use of Skycrapers: namely in crowded cities, were just the landscape does not allow anymore going into the wide. Then the only options are to stop letting the city grow, or expand into the sky, and that's where you need skyscrapes again. Given that every accessible space is already used as efficient as possible for residents of course

Using the Burj Khalifa, a vanity project if there ever was one, as an example of inefficient use of land is very disingenuous, and an example of what I find so frustrating about Adam's videos - lack of historical context. Skyscrapers where first built in American cities specifically with the intent of maximizing capacity for a given footprint.

In sci-fi they always show crowded planets covered in skyscrapers, but when you run the numbers for the given population of those planets every person aught to have a massive empty warehouse worth of space between them

Although the points raised in this video are perfectly valid, I was suprised to find that the health & safety viewpoint was ignored. I would like to know how I'm going to be rescued from a fire on the top floors when the elevators/lifts are disabled and the fire escape stairways are filled with smoke.

Skyscrapers aren't needed in most of Europe, but there are places where space is at a premium and they make sense. South Korea and Japan's urbanized areas have a lot of tall buildings because lots of people in small space, and they do have high capacity public transit to keep up.

As a fellow Hungarian, I'd just like to add that those so called "Village house" type residential buildings aren't that great to live in either. It is a relatively common source of humour in Hungarian stand-up that living in such places is pretty bad. Annoying neighbours, small living space, etc. I guess it is a better solution than a skyscraper if the goal is to give a lot of people homes in as small of an area as possible, but if the space lets it, houses that accomodate one/two families only, and each building having its own garden/backyard is much preferrable.

we love our alienation glass houses don't we folks

I'm glad to have found this video. I just watched a lot of videos advocating *for* skyscrapers/high-rises. I'm actually surprised the youtube algorithm gave me a contradictory viewpoint -- and I'm glad you made the video! Hearing opposing viewpoints and analyses gives me far more insight into what people might be thinking about a topic, and what might actually happen. It's good to see that you're at least trying to address some of the (eventual) issues skyscrapers will run into -- especially if people build them only for profit, and/or without thinking things through.

There is one nice thing about being high up you never mentioned. As someone who used to live on the 20th floor: it's so freaking quiet.

The "village house" is definitely not a solution. In France in the 1960s, they built massive amounts of these wall like structures, reshaping the suburbs' landscape. As a matter of fact, the alienation became so significant there that they were finally made illegal to build.

as someone living in hong kong, where state-funded residential high-rises complete with public amenities have been a thing for manny years because of the high population density, i respectfully disagree. people can socialize with their neighbors living on the same floor without ever leaving their floor, and leaving their flat does not take that much time ...

Think about if you took all the residential and office space in Manhattan and turned it into 10 story buildings. You would have to sprawl out forever to accommodate that, and build either a bigger subway network or a massive freeway system to cover that amount of space. Skyscrapers encourage denser urban design which helps mitigate urban sprawl. Vancouver, Canada is a good example of this. I agree that some prestige skyscrapers like burj kahlifa are unnecessary but skyscrapers as a whole provide a net gain for society. Also they look way better than 10 story buildings. Washington DC is ugly as sin for this reason.

I hate them because they’re the last place where giant apes make their last stand

I don't know about alienation, I'm quite OK with living on a high floor. I don't feel any difference from living on a 4th floor or 40th in terms of alienation, modern elevators are fast.

15 minutes to get down?😂 they usually come with elevators

The alienation point and inconvenience points are pretty moot points for most modern buildings. I've been in quite a few high rises as a food delivery person, it takes maybe 5 minutes to go from the first floor to the 40th floor. Elevators are fast these days. And a lot of these places have (pretty pleasant) lounge spaces INSIDE and have terraces/ communal balconies to hang out on. Not to mention they're usually all situated in dense urban areas full of stuff to do anyhow, and do people even want to talk to each other anyways? So yeah. This is a non issue. Actually, the elevator rides I've had in some low/mid rises have been much longer than in towers. The worst low rises have to be 4th floor buildings, where they can get away with only having stairs, it's awful. Who wants to go up 4 flights of stairs every time you go home? And when you have groceries? No thanks. Another thing I disagree with is the infrastructure stress argument. While I do agree it would put a strain on infrastructure (in perhaps typically car centric cities), the upside of that, is you now have a whole ton of people who might see these deficiencies and want BETTER infrastructure. And now you have the political will for cities to install things like nicer bike lanes and such. This might be a good thing. Additionally, it's conceivable that a skyscraper could come with a daycare built in and the ground floor could also be used for retail space. But this comes down to city ordinance and zoning. Aside from that I think the points are pretty valid, although I was a bit annoyed that you went for the single most extreme example of a skyscraper on planet earth instead of something more typical. A little bit sus ngl, because yeah, after a certain point, truly tall skyscrapers are just a prideful vanity project, which the burj Khalifa absolutely is. (And I do think it's possible for the state to step in and mandate that at least some of the units be set for lower income households.)

Completely disagree with "alienation" part, this is the kind of arguments people use when they see someone's private property and call it "agressive space", elevators today are super fast and the office building at my work gets me to the 36th floor within a few seconds.. yeah obviously if we all live in private houses with gardens than we will see each other much more but thats not possible

I agree that skyscrapers aren't always the most efficient way to build things but here are a few pointers. 2:00 If the building has elevators, getting to a park next door would take no more than 5 minutes, even from the top floor. 3:14 I see the point you're trying to make but I don't think it's really fair to use the Burj Khalifa as your example. No phrase better describes Dubai than awesome but impractical. Not to be crude but middle eastern cities have gotten involved in the contest of dick measuring. The Willis tower has 418,000 m2 and is only 1,450 ft tall in comparison to the Burj Khalifa which is 2,717 ft.

They're also difficult & dangerous to demolish when they inevitably come to the end of their lifespan.

in short bigger is NOT always better

The only literal use for the burj Khalifa was for Tom cruise to do that insane mission impossible stunt.

Speaking from Japan rn I can say that this is pretty true about a lot of places, in the states for example. There are probably cases where bigger buildings don't work and aren't effective use of space and resources. That's why you don't see skyscraper type buildings in medium size towns. In Tokyo and many other places around Japan for instance there just isn't enough land for what you are saying. People don't generally own cars and parking space is a myth, space is used very effectively in most places, and the only way to go is up. You can have residences on the first floor with a ramen shop and a convenience store, the second floor has more residences and a thrift store, third floor a bar, etc. Sometimes the only solution that makes sense it to build up and have good public transport.

Yeah- but if we're not going up we're going everywhere else. Expanding cities and urban areas will result in higher levels of deforestation via a need for space. Plus, expansion increases the cost of transportation and carbon emissions through public and personal vehicles. Although I'm not very experienced on this topic so I might very well be wrong

After building 300 skyscrapers, I'm tired

Loved this video, gave me a new perspective when you showed the Faluház Vs the Burj Khalifa. I wonder what the 1% exception would be in your view? Also I keep thinking about places like Tokyo and wonder how it would work. And I'm sure you've heard this before but I would love it if you made either a compilation or new video on how your "ideal city" would be built and function. I understand though if you never do it, just that it would be interesting from all the bits and bobs I see from each videos so far.

I beg to differ with the alienation part, it is generally a lack of a good initiation in the highrise building, I live in the 15th floor of a pretty big apartment which is kind off affordable and we have clubs and meets, joint events, barbeque days within the apartment which a lot of people attend !

Even tho I don't think skyscrapers are the best things ever, I'd still say that on average they are way better at land usage compared to other buildings. The Burj Kalifa is a bit of an extreme example, if you did the same comparison in Manhatten you'd get a different result.

There are some apartment buildings that include amenities like games rooms and fitness areas. Imagine, if you will, building apartment buildings that include these amenities, and also working and crafting spaces where people can combine remote work with the social contact they get from the offices. I'd live there in a heartbeat, especially if they were put in walkable neighbourhoods that allowed for grabbing groceries or going to the cinema without having to fire up a car.

I live in a skyscraper, my apartment is on the 69th floor (not joking), and the elevator takes only 40sec to go from my floor all the way down. Elevators on high rises are super fast, and the ones going on the upper floors don't stop on lower floors. Also there are gyms, cinemas, gulf simulators, table tennis and sometimes swimming pools and saunas and study centers to interact with others.

I soo disagree with the alienation argument. I lived in HK for a few years where everyone lives in skyscrapers. I found people to be outside socializing all day long, only to return to their apartment to sleep basically. Now I'm living in the Netherlands without a skyscraper in sight. Here I feel like every day at 6pm everyone flocks to their comfy houses disappearing behind their television. I'd say a city with low-rise houses alienates people much more than one with many skyscrapers. And I don't know where you live but an elevator from the 50th to the ground does not take 15min lol.

Your theory of skyscrapers preventing communities from forming is baseless, I have live in residential towers in Minneapolis, Chicago, and Atlanta, and I knew my neighbors much better in those buildings than when I moved into my single family dwelling.

4:30 imagine living in one of the blocks in the middle. You would never see the light of the sun xd

This was really informative and interesting, thank you. I've binged your videos and I love them. Easy sub

Those landscapers of 10stories are dirt cheap to build too, things get expensive only after 14stories. With the comparison to burj Khalifa, those short building world be 20 times cheaper to build too

Land cost in City center ain't cheap, perhaps you need to investigate that perspectives too. Most Asian city have high level of population density.

Environmental impact: Does a building housing 4000 people have a greater negative effect on the environment than 4000 houses each with one person ? I don't know. Somehow seems negligible at worst. Cost: On a 1:1 scale sure a big luxury skyscraper will cost more than my home. Doubt the same is true of anyone with a six figure income. Alienation: This point seems like a reach. 50th floor or ground floor people gonna go home and sit in front of their televisions or whatever. I'd argue that being able to at least share an elevator ride with someone is better than getting out of your car in a garage and not seeing anyone. Logistics: So they create jobs?

i love how in this video the need for better trains is implied when talking about reducing cars and parking spaces

Of course, there are even more problems with logistics. What do you do when elevators aren't functioning? How to get big furniture to the 100th floor? Rescuing people (not only from fires, but for example after a stroke or heart attack) becomes a challenge. You need some kind of reception which accepts packages for thousands of people. And of course, I have heard from people getting sea sick inside their own appartment because the building swings so much. Most scyscrapers don't really serve any practical use, but are prestige projects.

I used to live in a 33 story building (does that count?) . I met a lot of friends on different floors, every Friday we had "lobby parties" and would invite everyone coming and going through the lobby. It was great to be able to visit people or meet up before going out just by hopping in the elevator. Within the building there were restaurants, offices, hotel rooms, a massage place, etc.... It took up a tiny land footprint because is was closely surrounded by other tall buildings. My house was far from luxurious it was a 50 square meter studio apartment on the top floor. So while what you said is often true, it simply doesn't have to be. China, Hubei, Wuhan, Wuchang, Zhong Nan Lu. 武昌独立！

There are wooden buildings up to 18 stories tall with the use of glulam and Cross-Laminated Timber. While that technically doesn't hit the 40-story-minimum to be called a skyscraper, they are carbon neutral constructions (assuming saplings are planted in proper forestry tradition) and are significantly better insulated against the cold.

🥰 Love this! I'm fortunate to have lived a life that never heard of the Burj Khalifa until watching your Dubai video Mar '22! 🤯 Dubai in general and skyscrapers in particular are insane! Thanks for calling them out! In downtown Brooklyn, NY we're currently experiencing "the battle of the skyscrapers" 🙄 for no rational reason when low rise/ranch style structures are much more practical and aesthetically pleasing in this area. Re item 3 - Isolation - it's relative; I live in a 6 unit building and have no idea who the people in the other 5 units are! 😄

It doesn’t take 15 min to get from the 50th floor to the first floor! Lol. Elevators aren’t that slow. The only time I had issues is when two of my building elevators were down for maintenance

I agree/disagree? I think if designed properly, skyscrapers can be a pretty efficient way of making some space for offices/residents and the like. Skyscrapers in New York would be a good example of this, space is limited and height is the only way to add more stock. Now, that said, a 50 storey skyscraper next to a parking lot would be more efficient as 2x25 storey buildings. Skyscrapers are too expensive to be a viable solution for affordable housing. Clusters of single use buildings can create neighbourhoods that are empty and imposing outside of office hours. But, skyscrapers can help to create a sense of "place", a landmark, or even an attraction for people to visit and view the city from! Think of the Empire State, the Willis Tower and to an extent, the Burj Khalifa. The two former ones are quite well integrated into their neighbourhoods. When you are alongside the Empire State, if you don't look up, it appears like any other Manhattan building front, besides some particularly nice frontage. Skyscrapers are great when combined with good planning, are built in a neighbourhood with balanced uses and generally respect their surroundings, even if they are a departure from the usual architecture of the area. But I don't think we should fetishise them as urbanists, or see them as a perfect solution, but I also don't think they should be entirely disregarded.

"...open plan hellscapes (except for your boss's)" - ain't that the truth. Apparently, a quiet, isolated office increases your boss's productivity but is not necessary for worker productivity. Worker productivity is apparently best enhanced by how convenient it is for the boss to stand at one corner of the room and see if anyone looks like they're slacking off or, worse, actually enjoying their day.

Another mark against skyscrapers, many of the most densely populated cities on earth have almost no skyscrapers. Barcelona and Paris are cases in point, neither has significant numbers of skyscrapers, both are 2 of the densest cities on earth (both are denser then New York City), and both have a good quality of life. Many of the world's skyscrapers are built in cities with plenty of space available. Their purpose isn't to economise on space, except in some extreme cases (namely parts of Manhattan or Tokyo). Even then, if the developer wanted to maximise the floor area produced per investment, they could instead choose to produce low rise towers instead and get a far superior return.

You forgot the primary advantage of skyscrapers: overpriced condos that are used for money laundering!

I don’t know of any skyscraper that has a 15 minute long one way elevator.. but okay. You also likely have lounges, a gym and maybe a pool if it’s a luxury skyscraper

I personally love low rise apartment buildings and would never move into a bigger one. Mainly because in a building with 12 or under people living in it there is still personal accountability. Everyone knows everyone else. Over that number and people feel anonymous. They leave litter in the elevator, trash the lobby and public spaces, throw garbage at the garbage bins but not always in them and basically act like entitled, crazy people.

My favorite way of living would be a house without nearby neighbors from whom I could be alienated.

I am disappointed about this video. 1. Skyscrapers save area (if you build them close to each other, unlike the tower you have shown) and reduces the need for cars. Both things are environmentally friendly. 2. The cost of housing in big cities is mostly due to the cost of the land it sits on. More stories is using the same expensive land multiple times thus lowering the cost of housing. 3. Most high buildings have elevators. 4. As I have mentioned before, they should be built closer to each other and usually they are.

As someone who has lived in a skyscraper, you are right about environment impact. However, your philosophy about cost is flawed. Not all housing needs to be affordable. Skyscrapers are typically built in downtown areas. These are wealthy areas. Build apartments for the people that live there. Nobody is proposing building a privately funded skyscraper out in a poor neighborhood, that would be ridiculous. Those areas get mid-rises at the tallest. As for alienation, skyscrapers have something called an elevator. A properly built skyscraper will have enough elevators that it will rarely take you more than 5 minutes to get from the front door of your apartment to the front door of the building. As for logistics, you either put that stuff in the same building or in a mid-rise or high-rise next door. It's really not that complicated. The main issue with logistics is when people want to drive to the skyscraper. That's stupid. Skyscrapers shouldn't be built in car-dependent areas. They should be built in dense, wealthy areas of cities where you don't need a car. For instance, the skyscrapers in Houston, Texas are dumb. However, the skyscrapers in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania are not, as the people that live them generally either don't own a car or have a single car that they rarely use. The same goes for commercial skyscrapers, the people that drive to work in them have to pay a huge price for the limited parking supply in garages (this is a good thing). Therefore, since Philadelphia has an excellent commuter rail network, the ones that live outside the city drive to the commuter rail, park there, and take the train in. Many of the workers there also live in the city, and get to work by walking, biking, taking the subway, or taking the trolley. However, in Houston, people near universally drive to the skyscrapers. This is a huge issue. Also, your example of the Burj khalifa was an extreme one. That was a dumb project. It has a giant park around it. That's dumb. Skyscrapers shod oh be built densely, and on a gradual slope from low-rise buildings, like in Philadelphia.

I would say there is a sweet spot for the size and amount of skyscrapers that benefit the overall design of the city. In my home town for example there are about 10 buildings between 80 and 120 meters in a 15 minute walking radius of the main station and city centre, this enables really big companies to build their main Branch in the middle of the city were it is easy to reach by every mode of transportation and brings big city flair to an area where no body wants to live because it borders the train tracks and to highway.

Also most skyscrapers are mostly empty. They are bought as investments and spend most of their life used.