Urban wall instead of Urban sprawl

How might condos and apartments or even arcologies with well-defined outer boundaries (maybe the buildings just stop as farmland begins?) emerge as preferred living spaces to open land and McMansions by 2010-2020? And how large do these urban home skyscrapers become?
 
POD 1912: real estate magnate John Jacob Astor IV (the richest person in the world at that time, and also a sci-fi and technology buff) doesn't die aboard the Titanic, and does come across Edgar Chambless's "Roadtown" arcology concept, which he decides to build a prototype section of.

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We probally still end up with the Burbs but they start up a decade or so later. least in the USA and Canada. I can't picture the people seeing all this empty land not wanting to get out of these mega cities
 

SwampTiger

Banned
I could see this in a country ruled by an oligarchy controlling the vast majority of the land. Maybe Hungary in 1910. A Chinese statelet in the 20's.
 
It makes no sense. The total volume of building would be no more than a normal small town every twenty miles or more. Imagine living in that wall with trains rolling under you every day, but miles away for access to one.
 
I love this idea. I’ll focus on New York even though I know barely nothing about it.

I think the best case scenario would be to have a social democrat come to rule New York in the 1920s and 1930s, and have them take control of housing in the city. By that I don't mean forcefully seizing land, I mean making the majority of housing council owned between 1920 and 1950. Have them build enormous structures like these in the this period to house the urban workforce:

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Importantly, have the boroughs around New York reject the idea of suburbs. Have the councils massively restrict building so that no new housing can be built, and create a large green belt from Woodbridge Township through Elizabeth, Newark, Clifton, Yonkers and New Rochelle. Have Long Island do the same. Essentially this will make the housing in these areas super expensive and limit sub-urbanisation to a large degree.

Then expand affordable housing in NYC proper by building upwards. Like the enormous mountain apartments above, have buildings such as these become the norm for new builds by 1950. And so with these new builds NYC will not face a population decline or stagnation. Have the apartment buildings grow to above 20 stories, and keep on adding new floors as more people arrive in New York.

With all of that, I can see New York by 2020 having a density of 46,000 people per km2, making it the most dense city in the world, with a total population of 37 million, also making it the world's largest city.

Importantly, have apartments also be huge rather than cramped. Since the vast majority will be council housing, this will be tough. However the only way I can see this happening is by high rise technology being much more advanced to allow for a family to each get a place like that. By 2020 an average family apartment should look like this:

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Firstly, this would mean that people would want to keep living in New York due to the high standard of living. Secondly it would make sure the buildings stayed nice and high to give a more 3D city feel.

By 2020, have gyms, shopping centres, indoor gardens and more be in skyscrapers, and even have vertical lifts and sky walkways to give a more futuristic feel. While not exactly what you imagined, a high rise 100 stories tall on the edge of the city would directly face small woods and semi rural housing.
 

marathag

Banned
And the poors just can't wait to get urban renewed into some huge Brutalist Arcologies, followed by the Middle Class get to follow as wellsince Levittowns are not an option.

I see a huge exodus away from NYC.
How do these Zoning Boards keep from getting lynched?
 
It makes no sense. The total volume of building would be no more than a normal small town every twenty miles or more. Imagine living in that wall with trains rolling under you every day, but miles away for access to one.

You'd probably need to add a streetcar level, above the railroad level.
 
And the poors just can't wait to get urban renewed into some huge Brutalist Arcologies, followed by the Middle Class get to follow as wellsince Levittowns are not an option.

I see a huge exodus away from NYC.
How do these Zoning Boards keep from getting lynched?

I mean yeah this is so unlikely it's crazy, technology would need to be a lot better. Well firstly I'd imagine a Vienna style housing system, where the majority of housing is state owned and rented out to people for around 1/3rd of their income. If the demand and technology is there, I can very easily see them building upwards. Make these apartments modern, spacious and affordable and you'll have people queuing up to live in them. Also have indoor gardens, waterfalls etc and people will be alright. You'll still get lots of folks leaving, but many more will also come, especially young people and immigrants from abroad.

As for the zoning boards, just have them be supported by the residents of those counties. Have them look at NYC and realise laxing regulation will lead to them being swallowed by the city. It's not impossible.

In all honesty I'm treating this thread like a chat more than a WI. I'm just stealing ideas from our world such as the Vienna housing system, green belt programmes and skyscrapers to create a NYC that never sub-urbanised and grew upwards instead.
 
OTL Funny how the real world often develops similar to "Roadtown" clustered around new rapid transit.
Back when I studied at University of Ottawa, I had to write an essay about population density in the city. Locations of high-rise apartment buildings made no sense until you added locations of "bus trench" stations, then you see that most of the high-rise apartments over-looked "bus trench" stations. "Bus trenches" were only used by express buses moving commuters in from the suburbs.

We have seen similar growth in Vancouver. Initially the city was laid out in a rectangular grid focussed on electric trolley wires. Those wires still hang over the busiest shopping streets and busiest commuter routes. Since the addition of Skytrains (elevated light rail) we see "islands" of high-rise apartments over-looking Skytrain stations. On a clear day, you can locate the Metrotown Station from five miles away, just look at all the high-rise condos surrounding the Metrotown Skytrain station!
Over the last decade, we have seen dozens of high-density apartment buildings erected in Port Moody and Coquitlam in anticipation of the Evergreen Skytrain line. As soon as the Evergreen Line opened, real estate developers started consolidating land packages near the new Moody Centre Skytrain station. Within a decade, we expect all the existing one and two story buildings along Saint John's Road to be knocked down and replaced by four or five stories condos.
 
I wonder how it would work if you had entire communities with house-sized apartments (2,000 square feet, or just shy of 186 square meters if you prefer) in huge buildings. Basically apartment buildings take the place of suburbs, with buildings being massive - I’m thinking that one building would have hundreds of these homes in it.

One would have to build them insanely high and pretty wide to make it work, include courtyards and conveniences inside the buildings, and probably construct schools either near the buildings or inside them (which is a whole new level of insane.) One such building with a thousand homes would require something like two million square feet of space, so if each home is two 1000-square-foot floors, putting them 25 to a level requires an 80-story building at minimum. Assuming an average family size of four, that’s a lot of space for 4,000 people but it’s probably more space efficient than what we do now.
 
I wonder how it would work if you had entire communities with house-sized apartments (2,000 square feet, or just shy of 186 square meters if you prefer) in huge buildings. Basically apartment buildings take the place of suburbs, with buildings being massive - I’m thinking that one building would have hundreds of these homes in it.

One would have to build them insanely high and pretty wide to make it work, include courtyards and conveniences inside the buildings, and probably construct schools either near the buildings or inside them (which is a whole new level of insane.) One such building with a thousand homes would require something like two million square feet of space, so if each home is two 1000-square-foot floors, putting them 25 to a level requires an 80-story building at minimum. Assuming an average family size of four, that’s a lot of space for 4,000 people but it’s probably more space efficient than what we do now.
You are probably closer to 3 million square feet for 1000 2000 square foot homes as you need to include elevator shafts, both express and local at that height, possibly freight as well, emergency stairway shafts, big support columns, ventilation trunks, plumbing pathways and such, plus hallways, and if you want courtyards and conveniences in building you need even more. Still more space efficient, but as you build higher you start running into dis-economies of scale in terms of use-able area, so you don't get as much benefit per unit of height. And if you don't want your neighbors getting mad at you for blocking their light, you need setbacks, which increases the amount of base area you need. So calculations start getting wonky

This of course does not get into the financial headaches involved. You need a lot of engineering to make a tall building work and that costs, whereas all things considered a wooden 2 story house is pretty damn cheap
 
You are probably closer to 3 million square feet for 1000 2000 square foot homes as you need to include elevator shafts, both express and local at that height, possibly freight as well, emergency stairway shafts, big support columns, ventilation trunks, plumbing pathways and such, plus hallways, and if you want courtyards and conveniences in building you need even more. Still more space efficient, but as you build higher you start running into dis-economies of scale in terms of use-able area, so you don't get as much benefit per unit of height. And if you don't want your neighbors getting mad at you for blocking their light, you need setbacks, which increases the amount of base area you need. So calculations start getting wonky

This of course does not get into the financial headaches involved. You need a lot of engineering to make a tall building work and that costs, whereas all things considered a wooden 2 story house is pretty damn cheap

Frankly once you get into noise-proofing, accommodations inside the building, security, courtyards, transportation, parking, etc. you’re looking at probably 5-6 million square feet for something that ambitious. An 80-story building for something like this is on the high end, but I could see something smaller attempted. I could also see several such structures connected to a central community hub, which would include education, recreation, community business, etc. Something along those lines would probably be a happy medium between insanely ambitious projects and all the single-family homes we have now.
 

SwampTiger

Banned
I have trouble imagining water, firefighting, police and electric services in an eighty year old version of these buildings. Maintenance costs will skyrocket at some point. Then, you have transportation, recreation, retail, and school systems. I am having nightmares about such a city. But then, I grew up in a small town, under 35,000 population,
 
Does this thread consider building down, as was briefly en vogue for urban planners in the 60s, to count as this type of arcology? Because I've always been partial to the idea of a city visible on the surface as a series of ventilation shafts and people desperately seeking Vitamin D.
 

SwampTiger

Banned
Not in South Louisiana. Dig one to two feet and hit water. Pilings are your friend...up to a point. It may work elsewhere. Apparently Manhattan is built on a big rock.
 
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