American Learns Why Europe Doesn't Build Skyscrapers
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ต.ค. 2024
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I would not want skyscrapers to be built in Europe, cause it's something less hectic about the design and historical look. When I visited New york for the first time, it felt overwhelming to me how big everything was and I somehow felt enclosed and further from the natural beauty of natur. Hard to explain, but I felt smaller as a person and more like an ant just aimlessly moving around as a part of a unit, instead of an individual.
The "something" less hectic is exactly that.. when you can fit more people in a space, every day feel like moving through a festival or something. Your literally surrounded all the time, even the quiet places feel like medium sized town levels of it. Couldn't do big city again. Gimmie mountains and widerness.
Yes, I think that's the point of mass skyscrappers, to make humans feel small, insignificant and losing touch with their identity and natural roots.
Yes I felt the same
As stated in the video, there is a lot of historical buildings and environments, they would end up in the shadows of the skyscrapers.
There are high-rise buildings in Hamburg/DE, but these residential or office buildings are lower than the tallest church towers. There are some transmission towers, factory chimneys that are a bit higher.
In addition, especially in Hamburg, Dresden and other cities, there is the (transferred) fear of destruction by fire-> memories of WW2 bombardment and the great Hamburg fire of 1842, which caused loss of buildings and human lives (the buildings were then mostly 4-6 floors high)
We can add that european cities reach high density through other means like more walkable cities allowing for less parking space to be built. Some US cities look like war-flattened cities from the air with all the parking spaces
Moreover, European cities are on average far denser than American ones (mainly because of the huge sprawl of single family houses in the suburbs and the gigantic space dedicated to cars as a consequence, be it parking lots or roads)
That second sentence is quite ironic, considering our history.
American cities look like they where just recently carpet bombed by the allies ww2 style.
If they would do a show on tv to ask for donations to rebuild the city to recover from a desaster or something and they showed pictures of any random usa city they would bring in millions and everybody would feel bad for the people who lived there lol..
I watch videos of a guy that buys a car fixes it at the spot and then drives homes at the end. And he often shows the drive home in the end. And there NEVER any people around. None.
Just cars, and grey empty parkinglots everywhere as far as you can see. I think half the country is empty parkinglot next to 4 lane roads without sidewalks or anything. Just roads with parkinglots next to them and some buildings in the distance.
So extremely depressing. I am surprised sucide rates aren't a lot higher in the usa then they are honestly.
Skyscrapers doesn't mean more density in fact it is the contrary, the most density efficient buildings are 10-15 floors tall. Skyscrapers require a lot of resources (and space) around to work.
@@nombre3053 i think it depends. In new york they seemed to be build almost wall to wall. They must have some impressive density.
But normally they indeed require a lot of open space around them, which does severely lowers the density.
The high rents (in the UK at least) aren't really due to lack of skyscrapers - there's enough stock, it just stays empty. As house prices have boomed, many properties are bought and left vacant as investments, while ordinary people can't afford to buy/rent them
Or they buy them for holiday homes or air brb.
Yeah airbnb is a huge problem in the UK. We seriously need laws to restrict how many residential properties can be rented/bought/used for residential purposes per landlord. It's gotten to the point where people as old as 30 still cannot afford housing anymore after working their whole life to buy one, let alone pay for a morgage.
@@moony5097 middle europe, the same problem, my landlord owns several entire buildings in city, he is lawyer. I have very good job for several years already, no kids and still cant afford one apartment in city for myself.
Happened all over the Western world. That's what you get when you pump huge amounts of cheap money/debt into an economy, where only a small group of people can get their hands on.
About the 'not in my backyard', one big difference between Europe and the US is that here in Europe we have a lot more mixed usage whereas America has very strict zoning. People here can walk to a local grocery store, they don't have to drive to a commercial zone (shopping mall). So it is more likely that a high-rise office block would plunge some residential homes in shade.
yep, my Bakery 50m away is closing and I hate having to walk to the next one that is 300m away ... same for the kiosk that was selling about everything 7/7 100m away from my appartemant that closed. so shitty to have to walk 200m for the next one ...
@@benjaminlamey3591 WTF 300m ain't that big tho?? My house is like 1.7km away from the stores (I live in a county w/ some 10k ppl), and that's izi walkable (or bikeable) distance, no way. So 300m ain't shit
@@benjaminlamey3591 🤣🤣I live in an Apartment Complex, the last entrance, I had to walk 100mt. Unfortunately they closed, so it remains a barbershop, a travel agency, a Brazilian store, not yet open, + something similar to Pizza Hut, a Subway and a Turkish restaurant. Everything else 800mt away. Except car dealearships, big supermarket, McDonald's, bank, etc....ca. 3-4Km....or downtown...15Km. IDK how many skyscrapers they have now, but since I moved out everything is nearby and don't need my car every time to buy groceries..
@@skebaba918 I just got used to have 2 mins to the bakery every morning to pick up my bread for breakfast. so comfy ... result, I do take a breakfast anymore, cause I just can´t bother going and coming back all that before going to work. Now, I just go to work and eat a fruit at work ...
@@benjaminlamey3591 300m is like 5 mins tho???
I know we are on the edge of Europe but I could never imagine Stockholm turning into just a mess of skyscrapers, especially since it's soooo beautiful with the slightly older ascetic combined with all the water and vegetation
Walking around Old Town is amazing, but being anywhere else doesn't take it away as the other buildings aren't that much taller nor are many that particularly newer. There's some very amazing views you can get from not going that high, which would get ruined for sure.
Agree it is sad.
I wouldn't consider Stockholm the edge of Europe LOL
I feel the same about Vilnius. The old historical architecture is something that I wouldn't want to exchange into anything
Yes Kalle, you should not spoil Stockholm. It is too beatifull 👍
Gothenburg is now struggling hard to build as many skyskrapers as possible destrying its historical narrative and charm. Thats goa gubbar for you all. Soon don't bother to visit.
Fun fact : the Cathedral of Strasbourg, north east of France, whose construction began in the year 1220, is 142 m high and was for more than 2 centuries the tallest building in the world (from 1647 to 1874).
And they didn't build the second tower because it would have been too heavy and sink in the swamp it was built on !
@@zarrokea And they proposed to destroy the first tower during the French Revolution for "equality" reasons. Defenders of the cathedral placed a giant Phrygian hat on the tower to show that it 100% republican and didn't need to be destroyed.
Interesting! 🎉
@@616Regis They're called "Les Jacobins". Some French Revolutionnary Partisans. They were distinguished for their Phrygien Red hat
Our French Ancestors fought for their Freedom and Rights during the French Revolution 1789-1794. A big turn event of our Motherland
Yes - it tops the great pyramid by a few metres. The pyramid being at least 4500 years old though...
As a European I have to say we have PLENTY of free space in our cities. Rent is crazy but mostly due to the incentives structure for hoarding land, which is a problem almost everywhere in the world as of now. Then there's the traffic issue, putting the financial districts away from tourist destinations segregates traffic making everyones commune a bit faster.
Where are you from and really not provost my capital is so so high in rent
@@lukewalker3 they never said rent wasn't high they just said that wasn't because of not having free space
@@robinskailes4595 okay bro the rent on par with New York city so cheapest chips lad
@@lukewalker3 in Lisbon the rent is crazy right now, yet a lot of buildings are empty because they are either unsafe to live in or the landlords are holding them empty. Students in particular have been complaining for a decade that it is impossible to find rooms or apartments near their universities, having to commute for hours to get to uni.
@@SplitWasTaken is that ok the UK I have never heard of that town or city and it's crazy UK right now we are in such a big mess
We don't because "downtown" were built hundreds of years ago and historic significance of those buildings as well as their architectural value will never allow them to be demolished. Aesthetically they're also criminally aggressive to the city. Planning for such buildings is a nightmare when most people use public transportation to get around. This being said THERE ARE skyscrapers in European cities. It's just not the "go to" way to develop cities. Most of them have height quotas per neighborhood and no building can freely rise above the rest.
It's also that in the US the skyscrapers are all offices and hotels while most people live in suburban sprawl. In Europe we actually live in our cities.
@@DaDunge most skyscrapers in europe are also hotels and offices.
@@gabkoost Yes but our skyscrapers aren't in our cities but in airport or commercial parks outside them. We live in the midrise buildings that are actually in the cities.
@@DaDunge yeah. I really can’t imagine living in a place like “the defense” in France. It felt almost dystopian even if impressive.
Though it does seem like a nice work environment.
Those skyscrapers in Paris are called "la défense", they are actually outside the historic Paris line. They are pretty much office buildings with Total, EDF and Suez owning/renting offices or the entire building. Total being fuels and energies, EDF being the French national electric company and GDF Suez being gas and resources. It's actually a beautiful skyline since most of the buildings are recently built with a few more coming up. But it is technically outside Paris.
Like the Skyscrapers outside of the Center of Vienna. Thank God those are more far away but there are some close too my home. Buisness and also complexe buildings. And there are Schrebergärten too.
@@silviahannak3213 and it’s good their organized, planned and designed properly
We have the same thing in Amsterdam, the so called zuidas. Not really skyscrapers I guess, but its the business district of Amsterdam and has lots of tall office buildings, but it is just far enough from the ancient city centre that the beautiful scenic views aren't disturbed by them!
@@silviahannak3213 Personally I think a few scattered around so they look more like features than massive barrier walls that turn the streets into canyons of perpetual darkness is a good thing. A tower or two as a relatively infrequent feature becomes more of a landmark too, kind of like the modern version of the cathedral spire or Eifel tower type structure. If everything is tall it makes the streets feel more like a dystopian version of an oversized hedge maze where the sun never shines on the people running bellow.
That's one more reason why I don't buy into this shit that building skyscrapers the rents would go down. They are so expensive to build that only corporations could do it and would control the real estate. Where's apartment building can be built with various funding.
You sir are a breath of fresh air.
Particularly being an American.
It's not common to be so interested and respectful of other countries and cultures.
So positive. 💪👍
I Like the fact that skyscrapers are not that common here, the cities just feel a little bit more like places designed for humans to actually live there with joy. I have seen a couple of cities in the states, like Toledo, Louisville, Frisco, and a couple more, but I don't know, some corners are pretty nice, but overall I just miss this "your at-home feeling" that European cities give me, I never felt like, yeah I just want to run around the whole day and hang out here. I mean, it's not fair to compare the rich history of Europe with the young states, but my feeling is, that at some point things got out of hand, old buildings got replaced with skyscrapers, living areas with roads and parking lots, everything was aligned to the car and the mighty dollar and the people were just forgotten.
I agree. Skyscrapers are ugly, dehumanise society and social contact, are more disaster prone (remember that London flats fire?) and also just ego things for rich developers and banks.
It's not about age. The US has pushed a lot of car centric design into its cities in the modern era. What you're talking about is something Not just bikes and strong towns talk about ad nauseum.
Its all about City planning and who the city was planned for.. In europe they planned it around people, thats why many places have a decent public transport system, sidewalks and bikelanes as the cities were not planned for cars, unlike in the US.
I totally wanted to hang out all day in New York City. But then, it has a great mixture of low- and highrise and green. I think it's about the mix.
I am really surprised the narrator never showed any pictures of Frankfurt, Germany in this video. There is an area full of skyscrapers that make it look like an American city, and it's called "Mainhattan", a nod to Manhattan in NY of course, and this is due to the fact that Frankfurt is situated on the river Main. ;)
Well, if you'd ever been to Rotterdam, The Netherlands, you'd found that the inner city of Rotterdam is skyscrapered and referred to as 'Manhattan aan de Maas' (Manhattan on the river Meuse).
With some 'help' from Germany (Rotterdam was leveled by Nazi Germany bombs in WW2. That's why Rotterdam and Dresden Germany are sister cities. Dresden was also leveled, but by Allied Forces), Rotterdam had to be rebuilt after the war. Because it was completely obliterated, Rotterdam had the 'advantage' that there were no historic buildings etc that could have been damage by building skyscrapers. You won't find small streets like in Amsterdam, Paris and other 'old fashioned/historic' cities. It's all post WW2 (except for the St. Laurens church and a hand full others, that miraculously mostly survived the war).
hetrotterdamswarenhuis.nl/app/uploads/2020/09/MADM_omslag.jpg
@@arturama8581 Well, in Netherlands i heard you have even more of a housing space problem than we do in Germany. Fun fact about many german cities that have been bombed to the ground during WW2: They have rebuilt it exactly the way it was before. I live in Freiburg im Breisgau, except for the 'Münster' (the main church that doesn't belong to the church but to the citizens of Freiburg) and one building next to it, all of the historical medieval city center was gone. Including the university buildings and even the ground. And now it looks very much exactly like it did before the bombing, including frescos on some houses. It's a beautiful place and lovely to live there, but until today the rent in the apartements in the center is higher than in Berlin. We do have lots of skyscrapers in the outskirts though, but they aren't in masses.
Yeah, it's an amazing place! But the topic is that skyscrapers are not something typical European kind of life and also Manhattan is just a separated spot from the original city, Honolulu for example has skyscrapers in order to create a whole city with skyscrapers
As he said, he is still learning:) Paris, London, Frankfurt, Warsaw ..... all have great skyline
But noone in Germany wants to live in Frankfurt ... because of the skyscrapers. :)
the name "Berlin" literally means "swamp city" in its origin .
btw hitler let engineers built a special building in order to measure the sinking of the ground under heavy pressure (they wanted to find out wh etherhitlers insane construction projects are possible to realise or not). the building is still sinking until this day and they found out that it`s basically impossible to build super heavy buildings in berlin.
Something good from a crazy person
Yes, Berlin hasn't the ideal geology to build skyscrapers. But that isn't the reason why Berlin has so few of them. Berlin is the capital city of Germany, but compared to London or Paris it isn't the financial or commercial center of the country. There are no big banks or companies in Berlin, which want to show of their power by building a skycraper. And after the war and the division of Germany, there was a lot of unused space to build on, no need to build expensive high-rises.
@@red.aries1444 after all, it is the reason...you already answered the question.keyword expensive.
just take a look at the ongoing project on alexander platz. they try to build 130m twin towers.
Now, the ground is sagging and the subway is broken.
btw the fernsehturm blew the budget before they even finished the foundation. and it`s a light strukture with only 1/10-1/15 of the weight ny city skyskrapers have.
@@red.aries1444 yeah the financial superhouses of Germany are Munich, Frankfurt, Cologne and I think Stuttgart.
I like the Paris model, in that they effectively have a cultural heart and a financial heart. They can have a huge tourism industry with their cultural side, and still have a modern city for people to work in. It also allows people to live in the medium density, walkable areas that have local businesses everywhere, because if you limit the height of buildings, the maximum height is going to be built over a greater area, so you get a much larger area with dense enough population to support a large number and variety of local businesses. It's not as busy as a pizza place in the middle of downtown New York, but it's still busy enough for most businesses like cafes, bakeries and convenience stores to have a good customer base.
This happend in every city in Europe, not only in Paris
I think you are quite right BUT this comes with some issues. The jobs and the houses not being in the center can cause big issues. Most notaly, a lot of people live in the suburbs and commute long distances every day, having to cross the city center without ever benefitting what it has to offer or even seeing it as they only go to the underground train tunnels. Paris is said to be one of the least pleasing cities to live in France mainly because of these long commutes and the inconvenience of the public transportation system as soon as you don't live in the center (which is super expensive as a lot of people would like to).
@@noefillon1749 still better than most US cities. They live in walkable neighbourhoods with some of the best bakeries and cafes in the world. They have good public transport. They have art galleries and museums that are the envy of the world that they can see on their days off, although they probably should limit their visits to the off season to avoid the crowds.
@@evanflynn4680 You are refering to the center of the city. The parisian suburbs are far less known worldwide and this is for a reason : they are far less pleasing to live in and even worse to visit (most of them have no touristic interest in themselves). Not all suburbs are walkable (even though I think the least walkable place in the Greater Paris area is more walkable than the average American suburb), they usually are very discriminatory : the poor live in huge neighbourhoods of high (between 5 and 20 floors) cheap buildings and the rich live in other places in individual houses, big metropolis usually tend to naturally generate this kind of segregation, and the poor usually live where the rents are cheaper : far from the center and in places where the transports are not as good (usually the transports are not as good in the suburbs as in the center anyway).
The best bakeries and cafés are usually located in the center even though the suburbs have bakeries, restaurants, cafés... this is not so better than the rest of the country, we have bakeries everywhere, there are really far more bakeries than supermarkets in France.
Regarding the art galleries, they don't really matter in everyday life, except for the unbearable amount of tourists you encounter every day in the Metro when you are tired getting home from work.This is actually linked with another problem with living in Paris : it is always overcrowded. This brings a lot of advantages : you can find everything you need (or don't need... or don't know you want) easily, but it can often be overwhelming.
@@noefillon1749 you do realise that things being worse for the poor than it is for the rich is how things work everywhere, right? Just because it's Paris doesn't change that. In fact, only a few cities in the world go out of their way to make sure people have access to convenient public transport. Granted, some try, but it ends up being less than convenient in most places that aren't built up near the city centre.
In 1945 in Poland the only thing remaining from Warsaw was the river. It was all rubble to the horizon in every direction. Poles wanted to rebuild the capital and they could have rebuilt it into anything. However they didn't even rebuilt it to the 1938 Warsaw. Instead they used the extremely detailed paintings of an Italian painter Bernardo Bellotto and made the 1767-1780 replica of the city. Which is really hard to believe since Warsaw is now becoming such a skyscraper city. A mix of both worlds, and somehow it all works. The tall buildings are far enough to not dominate over the historic ones.
But still visible Especial Varso Tower 310 (1,020 ft) Meter high 6th tallesest tower in Europe
Regarding the price of living in Zurich an Geneva, don't forget that in Switzerland everything is really expensive (I'm from there so I would know haha) and these two are the biggest and most expensive cities in an already expensive country.
Yeah I visited Zurich last year, really pretty but damn is it expensive. I get it why salaries are so high lol.
@@XtrAMassivE Yeah it's crazy, Zurich is expensive even for people in Switzerland who live in other parts of the country. Geneva is maybe the exception.
In my hometown of Mariehamn, Åland Islands, with roughly 12k inhabitants, there has been this three story limit on all buildings since forever, no buildings may have more than three stories, they have slowly started making a few exceptions here and there recently but mostly still enforce this limit
Yeah, you wouldn't want giant steel, class and concrete fallic building to ruin landscape in åland or in mainland finland. With exception of yle's concrete tower in helsinki.
There is also a different video about this topic, going more in depth regarding post WW2 development. The general summary is: People wanted to rebuild what was lost rather than build completely new stuff
THAT. I live in Freiburg im Breisgau, where the complete historical city center was bombed flat, except the main church and the medieval market space around it + half of a building. Even the ground was partly gone. They rebuilt it EXACTLY the same, including frescos on house walls and tiny windows. With a few exceptions that were added later, during 60s and 70s.
In the 60s and 70s a lot of cities where in the process of being bulldozed just like american cities to put highways trough them and what not. But there was a lot of outrage against it and it was stoped before everything was destroyed.
Cities like frankfurth and rotterdam still cary the scars of this madness and also are the worts cities to drive in ironicly.
American cities where just like european cities pre ww2. But they did bulldoze everything to make place for highways and parkinglots.
The few neighbourhoods in some cities that where spared are now also the most expensive places to live in north america.
Honestly every building that forces me to walk in its shade is either too high or too close to the sidewalk. I need natural light more than anything, both within the house and in the neighbourhood. Even here in Europe I stay away from cities as much as possible as they're still so depressing. So few places where there's sunlight from dawn till dusk.
I agree. I like a building that has character. The Sears Tower, and The Empire state Building is ugly.
You must come and visit Lisbon. Due to short buildings and so many hills you're pretty much always under the sun. That's the reason why Lisbon is known as the city of light
@@iTa66 That does sound nice. I have been to the Algarve before, perhaps one day I'll combine a holiday with a citytrip to Lisbon.
yea the issue is that, during summer, the sun is up high in the sky so the shadows of those buildings don't help as much with the heat as a row of trees would.
conversely during winter when you want to be in the sun, the sun is lower in the sky, the buildings throw shade everywhere, whereas trees loose their leaves so it's not a problem.
@@iTa66 nice, i live in Huelva which is also called the city of light due to being the city with more yearly sunlight hours of Spain (i would even say Europe but im not sure about this)
Althought as someone else mentioned, the total lack of shadows is literally lethal on summers
It is surprising that there are only 218 skyscrapers (highrise) in the whole of Europe and 68% of them are in 5 big cities: London, Paris, Moscow, Istanbul, and Frankfurt. The reason The Old Continent is so reluctant is that everything comes with a price.
I would put Warsaw on that list too
And skyscrapers are not a price worth paying.
Istanbul is in Asia
In Europe, a lot of major cities started as settlements built in swamps, thousandds of years ago, as a natural protection. So, by nature, the underground isn't that much suited to build heavy skyscrapers on top. The fundaments would have to get too deep, maybe even as deep as the building is high. That's often the main reason why skyscrapers aren't a big thing in Europe.
We do have skyscrapers, but they aren't in the city centre or as you say "downtown" because out cities are built like 1000 years ago. For example, London has canary wharf, several miles away from the the old city.yes, London is a big place, it's population is just under 10 million people, new York has 8.4 million! We love our history and love to preserve our heritage.
The first thing that comes to mind is the water supply. For the average urban European, drinking fresh water straight from the tap without any filtration is standard. In tall buildings, there can be problems with water pressure on the higher floors because the current infrastructure is not built for this, and it cannot be addressed without any improvements to the water mains. This improvement would have to be paid for somehow, but water suppliers do not do charity. So water would be more expensive not only for the users of the new building, but for the whole area.
There is also a problem with fire prevention regulations in Europe because streets are narrower and this also limits the size of firefighting equipment, so it would be more difficult to carry out some interventions in very tall buildings.
About the water pressure. Tall buildings have water pumps so water can reach higher floors. Residents pay for the maintenance. The only drawback is that you lose water pressure if there's a blackout and the building doesn't have a generator, but I don't think that's an issue in most European cities. Maybe the water supply wouldn't be sufficient because of the higher density, but not being able to reach higher floors is not an issue
It’s no surprise than Geneva and Zurich made it into the most expensive cities, Switzerland isn’t a cheap country, it’s beautiful tho
Yeah… skyscrapers lower the rent and make housing cheaper… just look at New York… 🤣🤣🤣
I like that it encourages moving to the country side in Europe. With homeoffice starting to be the norm since covid restrictions, I think that it limits the growth of the metropolis and leads to evening out the wealth discrepencies between metropolitan areas and the rest of the country. It might be expensive now, but it could be good for the future.
Thanks Ian this was interesting,as much as I love my country ( Australia) I’m also enjoying and learning about the rest of the world 👏
I went to your country and enjoyed the Vienna Boy's Choir.
Great to hear!🎉
Green belt is around most towns and villages in the UK, to protect them, there is a lot of pressure to encroach in to it. They are re-evaluated all the time.
The financial district and Docklands (Canary Wharf) have the most sky scrapers, this, as the name suggests, used to be Dockland and wasteland and does not get in the way of the protected views.
You can bet that if more office and residential high rise buildings were built, the rent would NOT go down
This is an interesting video, nice one!
Agreed about the rents, because high rise apartments over ten stories have increasing engineering costs that go up with the height of the building, which increases the cost per square metre of floor space. If they built big high rise apartments you'd be able to fit more people in the city, but the average rent per bedroom would remain pretty much the same. Mostly because they'd build them pretty close to the city, which means they would probably focus on building more luxury style apartments to attract the wealthy. I'm looking at New York as the example for this trend. The buildings around Central Park are some of the most expensive in the city. Billionaire's Row, for example. If you want cheaper rent in a city, the best way to do it is to find an area where the buildings are less than five stories tall and replace them with apartment buildings between five and eight stories tall, with the ground floor of the buildings on the busiest street to have small businesses like convenience stores/small supermarkets, cafes, bakeries, etc. Add extra infrastructure to allow the increased number of people living there now to get around on convenient public transport of some kind and it will be a nice place to live if done well.
Never mind the fact that half of London's living space isn't used because wealthy investors use it as an investment without actually renting it out.
@@evanflynn4680 I am a Brexiter and I like Canary Wharf!! Great Empire in Europe!🤣🤣😁😁🫀🫀tue lost city...........
@@evanflynn4680 yep, "commie blocks" are the most efficient way to house the most people
notice how even in the video it was constantly mentioned, how most skyscrapers in europe are in financial districs.
But somehow they make the assumptions they are build for more renting/living spaces.
That's not what skyscrapers are for.
I don't know much about the rest of Europe, but in the case of London, especially around Canary Wharf, there are a lot of skyscraper residential apartment blocks. In the case of Paris (la Defense) yes, its mainly for business.
Another advantage of lower buildings is that fire engines / ladders can reach up along the entire length of the building if the accident is imminent
Fun fact: the city of Utrecht in The Netherlands has the highest church tower in the country at 112 metres. There is an unwritten rule that no other building in the city may be built higher than the church tower itself. Some years ago, there was a plan on building a skyscraper higher than 112 metres somewhere in the outskirts of the city, but the people living in Utrecht protested so much that the plans were scrapped! So: no skyscrapers in Utrecht, and they will probably never come.
we have a similr unwritten rule in Milan , you can't build anything taller than "la madonnina" , the golden statue of the Virgin Mary located above the Duomo Cathedral (108,5 m).
But we are Italians and we found a system to bypass the unwritten rule: The highest building in the city "must" put a copy of "La Madonnina" on the top, so now we have the Original One on the Duomo , a second one on Pirelli Tower (127 m), the third one on Palazzo Lombardia(161,3 m) and the last on the Isozaki Tower or Alliance Tower (209,2 m)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonnina_(statue)
@@79lucone Thats honestly a pretty clever work-around haha
But not having skyscrapers does not mean that the EU has small houses.
It is quite common to have back to back 3-6 Story building as living space and a small shop/bar/whaterver on the ground floor.
It is a difference in zoning and how to use that space.
As a French who almost had to rent in Paris I'm impressed that Paris has only the 6th most expensive rents. Not all areas of Paris are worth the same but it's still super expensive, the other 5 must be crazy expensive.
The thing with the ground is something a lot of cities located near rivers have to keep in mind. And when they forget... well then the building with either sink completely or you get another Pisa-like building. Foundation here in Hamburg is sometimes a bit iffy. A famous example is the City Hall. There are 4000 oak piles carrying the foundation, that had been rammed into the ground because otherwise the ground wouldn't have been stable enough. There are some skyscrapers, but not that many. And funnily, where there are good foundations, the Hamburger decided to tunnel. Sometimes I look at maps of the different Underground systems and feel the city stands on to of a large swiss cheese. Seriously, take a look at the tunnels of DESY. Thise are interesting but I wouldn't plonk any highrise building on top of those.
I am located in a small (21K citizens) town southwest Hannover. The city church foundation was done in the 11th century. I remember when an American friend from W. Virginia was visiting me and told me that he was proud of that he was living in the oldest house of town which was like 130 years old. I told him "The one you´re in is about 130 years old as well. It´s one of the youngest in town though."
I have no problems writing these lines from a house built in 1644 (foundation and foundation walls, of course renovated and to the newest standards) from a village founded in 731, my fellow German! What was good in the past is still good today.
Gruß und guten Rutsch!:)
In Manchester UK, one of the iconic sights is along Deansgate, a long, straight historic road in the city centre stretching back to Roman times. Festooned with large 5-6 story buildings, at the end - skyscrapers. Walking along this road is almost a sci-fi experience, as you are surrounded by Britain's impressive imperial past, but ahead lie the futuristic-looking giants...to me, it's awesome.
Who asked?
@@killergame8164 People can share their opinion ya know
As a European I don't want skyscrapers. I'd rather pay a bit more for rent than suffocate inside an urban nightmare. I get dizzy just thinking about living in NYC. I prefer to see the sun every morning from my second-floor apartment.
Building skyscrapers is basically only possible with steel girders. If you intend to build with stone you'd need absolutely mega-thick massive stone walls at the bottom, tapering out to very thin at the top, to allow for all the weight. This then poses the problem of ground pressure which might cause such buildings not only to sink, but sink asynchronously, thus causing them to slant or even topple over. Even with the most modern measures of compacting ground a skyscraper built of stone would be incredibly heavy (compared to a steel girder building). The cost of building a stone-only skyscraper would also be prohibitively expensive. Nobody would be able to afford to live there, as standard apartments would cost in the tens of millions and penthouses would cost in the billions.
So even if all the technical problems could be overcome by having the perfect ground placement, stone quality, craftsmanship, etc, the cost-efficiency calculation would make stone skyscrapers virtually impossible to budget for.
Steel girders however need to be kept in top notch condition and have to be repainted with anti-rust paint regularly. Or they have to be made of stainless or galvanized steel.
Either measure isn't very cost-effective, thus making long lasting skyscrapers virtually impossible from a cost-efficiency perspective. It is almost guaranteed that none of the skyscrapers built in the last 150 years will be left standing in 1000 years time. Because they won't last long enough without regular and costly maintenance. An unnoticed rusty steel girder suddenly collapsing could spell disaster, not only for the skyscraper it was used in, but also to many of the surrounding buildings.
Even stone buildings have to be refurbished constantly, but their structure itsself lasts for a very long time if built correctly. It will change color, loose some edges and beauty, certainly, but it will tend to last a very long time. But it isn't a problem to exchange even major parts of its structure without having the whole building collapse. Take away major steel girders from skyscrapers and watch them topple.
If you want a really bizarre building problem for Berlin, check out Hitler's megalomaniac idea of essentially tearing down all of Berlin after his ultimate victory, and rebuilding it to his mega-grandiose dreams under the name Germania. For that he wanted to build two absolutely massive buildings. One was a victory arch similar to the Arche de Triomphe in Paris but HUUUUUGE. In the four huge columns supporting the four archways were smaller archways. Underneath each of those four smaller archways the whole of the Arche de Triomphe of Paris would have fit multiple times. The central arches would have been so huge to have fit the whole of the Empire State building underneath it.
Another building was the Deutschland or Germania Volkshalle that was supposed to house up to 500 000 people for his annual celebrations. It was calculated that its central dome would be so tall that there was a chance that CLOUDS would form inside it.
For this he gave his star architect Albert Speer the go-ahead for a study to see how the ground in and around Berlin could be compacted, or how it would compress under such massive weights.
So the "Großbelastungskörper" / the "grand ground pressure body" was built. This was in essence a thin cylinder of steel reinforced concrete on the ground, with an empty tube going underground.
This was topped with a much larger block of solid steel-reinforced concrete reachig out five meters over the inner cylinder. This created the calculated ground pressure of both the Germania Halle and the Triumphbogen. This would allow the inner tube to be compressed and sink into the round. To measure the rate of sinking Speer came up with an ingenious method.
As the measuring devices of the time were not accurate enough to allow for such minute measurements, Speer decided on an optical approach. He built a large circular chamber underground with diagonal canals going to the surface. The inner tube was disconnected from the outer tube.
With the inner tube being disconnected from the outer tube, a light shined down the canals would reflect off mirrors placed in the circular underground chamber. The reflected light diminished if the canals were partly obstructed by the sinking of the inner cylinder into the ground, thus misaligning the inner and outer walls of these canals, canceling out the reflected light. Light sensitive film was then used to measure how much light was reflected.
It turned out that the GBK, the Großbelastungskörper sank at roughly 7.5 INCHES, or roughly 19 cm in 2.5 years. It still continues to sink to this very day albeit at a slower speed.
well... not like that many skyscrapers are really for lodging... they're more for offices... and we already have much free office space
so the argument to build skyscraper to lower lodging rent is dubious...
As european im glad we dont have skycrapers here. BUT the lack of skycrapers makes me want to travel to see places that have them to give me that "Wow" feeling. Since I've grown up without them.
Yes, the Tour Montparnasse is an eyesore on the Parisian skyline, but the rooftop terrace there has an amazing 360 degree view of the city. A view that includes the Eiffel Tower. Also, it's much less crowded than the Eiffel Tower.
Here in Italy it usually works like this. In suburban areas, you can build reasonably tall buildings (which sometimes are horrendous, but anyway) and they can expand (I live in a zone that was once a countryside village, and now is a suburban area). However, if you want to do ANYTHING to a building in the city centre, the authorities are going to be like NOPE!!! You can't even build a balcony or add a window to your house! Sometimes, however, people do it anyways because, you know, corruption...
I do know that there are skyscrapers in that suburban area of Rome, quite a number of them. Milan has the their skyscrapers in the suburbs as well.
I actually love that they don't build skyscrapers. Why tear down a historical building that has character. Like who cares you have a really tall ugly skyscraper. Sears Tower doesn't empress me. That is really smart to have protected zones so you can see them and not be blocked by a huge building.
I like that there are not very much high buildings in Nuremberg. It is a grown old town and it is common to live in the city, not only outside the city limits. So it gives a free feeling to me, it is wider, feels more open and there is a sky I can see, and better airflow in the streets and more sun for all the trees and flowers in town... Cities without skycrapers feel smaller to me than they are and I think people feel less anonym and tend more to a community feeling.
Some statements made in the video are not correct at all.
Most of the skyscrapers are not build having cheaper affordable rents in mind. In the contrary they are build as status symbols. If you want to rent the top penthouse they are sky highly priced.
We don't like that so much in core Europe. However seems to be ok in Russia and Turkey.
Just look, how many skyscrapers are named after their funders: Rockefeller, Chrysler, Woolworth, Trump, etc.
I'm from Spain. There's a city in the Mediterranean coast called Benidorm that has like 70k inhabitants and apparently is the second city in the world with more skyscrapers per square meter. Go figure!
Ahh benidorm.... the place where old europeans go to die and young englanders go to get drunk and be completely anoying to everyone else.
Also the world hotspot if you are an early morning german towel war enthausiast.
So many memories lol.
@@baronvonlimbourgh1716 the shit with Benidorm is insulting, im from Spain itself, you know the same country Benidorm is located in yet the receptionist at the hotel didnt know spanish and we had to resort to Talk english in a spanish city as spanish people
As a quantity surveyor, I'll tell you straight. Foundation can cost up to 50% of a building. The worst case I've seen went up to 75%.
Height is a factor but so do weight and the kind of soil, in the cost of the foundation. The higher you build, the more expensive it becomes and it defeats the goal of lowering prices.
Oddly enough, if you have to dig anyway, building deeper can achieve the cost efficiency. But who would want to live underground. I've seen many realistic concept of of "buried cities". They create large space and welcoming urban environment. But they bring back the cost efficiency issue.
Another thing to point out is stricter regulation regarding fire security in EU, not sure about all Europe though. The height and size of a building is often limited to allow as many people as possible can be evacuated and/or saved before the building is unsalvageable. The height limitation is also based the firefighter ladder height. Of course, there are always exceptions due to lobbies or/and corruptions. And of course political reasons.
I live in a rural area in a small former fortified city. A few decades ago some idiots in local government allowed a small skyscraper to be build and it.. was.. UGLY, Locals called it the Pimple and at the first opportunity (still 25 years later) it was demolished.
Now there are cities in the Netherlands with large skyscrapers, for example Rotterdam, which looks really wonderful. But still I prefer the old Dutch city scapes, although housing shortage may force us to change our mind about that in the near future 😅
Been to Rotterdam, Delft and Den Haag recently and honestly I liked the more “modern” look of Rotterdam the least - it was a cool contrast to the more old school Den Haag and very old school Delft tho
Europeans just don't like living in the shadow of concrete phallus symbols. It may be true that skyscrapers can lead to greater urban densification and that rental prices could fall as a result. However, skyscrapers also have negative effects on their neighborhood and we regard restrictions in terms of air and light as an unacceptable impairment of housing and thus quality of life.
Maybe we Europeans also have less to compensate for.😄
Yes Ian I remember when I was young bloke places like Croydon and Crawley were basically semi-used farms lands and now they are incorporated into the sprawl of London. Such a shame really as they were very nice small towns. I live in Australia now (since 1978) and am glad to be away from the ever-encroaching area of London and the madness in the UK in general. I have had three holidays back there and always felt the whole country is so claustrophobic.
Honestly, Scyscrapper would be build for offices anyway, so yeah, very much against
I think to protect our heritage is more important than building these ugly skyscrapers. You can build them but not in historical centre! I love that we have green cities, a lot of parks and trees around the city and you can actually see sky. I think Paris is a great example how to preserve our history and build modern buildings (except that ugly one). My city Riga in Latvia is 821 years old and unfortunately we have glass and tall buildings in our centre and they're ugly and destroy all view of the city!
Don't worry, Putin could knock them down one day.
@@MissionHomeowner 🤦♀️ you need to check your head
@@owtena I'm guessing it's not only Riga, rest of Latvia might have a similar problem. Estonia and Lithuania might also have a similar problem.
I think I heard that Soviets wanted their cities to look "American".
@@automation7295 you're wrong in Soviet times they didn't build such an ugly buildings as they do now. They demolish old buildings and build ugly buildings from glass. It's NOW that they're trying to convert beautiful old cities into ugly American cities. That's awful and tasteless!
About cheaper rent, that's a myth. Another thing is who would want to live in a mind numbing city where all you see is concrete and asphalt with no sun and smog. Not me. Another thing skipped here is the lack of safety. If a fire breaks out in a skyscraper you are trapped like a rat, with lower flats you at least have a chance to survive, purely because the fire brigade can reach your floor to get you out.
Loved this, very interesting. What about those places that have built ghost cities that no-one can live in. I did watch something on that but can't remember the reason they can't live in them ..... in countries with HUGE populations.
That would be in China.
The scheme and it is one, goes roughly like this:
1) The local goverment sells* a good chunk of land to a practically goverment run investment company (when in doubt they bulldoze whatever is standing in the way).
2) The buildings/ apartments get sold to families living somewhere else usually before they are even build, it's seen as a pure investment because prices "can only ever go up".
4) The investment gets sold again to another sucker, ideally with a nice profit... you really NEED a sizeable profit, because most of those places get bought on the type of debt you can't refuse to pay back.
5) Regardless of the actual build quality, or any completed buildings at all: barely anyone will ever live in those places. It all just a giant get rich quick scheme.
Bonus) The central government was is deep love with this scheme for years, cause more construction => more GDP (on paper) => prove that China is doing well and deserves it's place on the big boy table. Right now the majority of Chinese construction companies are in deep shit, some would say the "get rich quick" investment bubble didn't just pop, it exploded. Just google "Evergrand", it's a really nasty financial bomb.
*: Land can't really be sold in China, the most that can happen is a lease for up to 70 years... after that the goverment gets the title to the land back. Did i mention that most local governments in China are strongly dependant on the revenue from sold land? Cause they are.
@@peterpan4038 thank you. I did know some of that from a documentary I watched on the housing "shortage" over there.
I thought I also saw ones in places like Dubai or there abouts. Somewhere that the sand was reclaiming the land that had been cleared and all these beautiful houses/buildings that had never been bought or lived in going to be buried with time.
I don't know when the statistic of rent prices in Europe was made but at least 2021-2022 Finland, Helsinki where i live is fourth.
1. Paris 2. London 3. Amsterdam 4. Helsinki 5. Berlin
Yes, thanks for that, I had a feeling that list was outdated.
Because too many hills and earthquakes.
There are some pretty huge hospitals for example but the one I'm going to is basically outside of the city and has a very concave design to not fall.
London is huge in footprint. The total width on the widest part inside the green belt is over 50km (over 30 miles). Its hard to compare to US because most cities there sprawl. But say Newark to Bronx is is less than 40km.
I´m kind of supriced that he took up the corruption aspect. Corruption is something that people seldom talk about in Europe, but it dies exist.
Hi did missed the most important factors, at least for northern Europe. Shadows. A city like Stockholm have a winter sun angle of 9 degrees. New your city have a winter sun angle of 26 degrees. A shadow from a highrise is almost 3 times larger in Stockholm than in New Your city. So for really any sun to reach the ground, the buildings have to be limited in size. There for, the few skyscrapers that exist, are very thin. So generaly the highrises are caped at 50 meters, that typically limt them to about 18 floors, that is right outside of the lower limit of what is considered skyscrapers, (20 floors).
A very typical example of this is new North in Stockholm where they just build two scyscrapers, one 30 floors, and one 35 floors. There is a huge area that just been developed due to moving a highway under ground.. Next to the two skyscrapers there is about 20 flat complexes right on top of the new highway. All of those are between 12 and 18 floors. If this was in the US they would probobly be 40 floors due to the shorter shadows, hence every one of them would be considered scy scrapers.
This is a totaly newly developed part of town. There are no cultural reasons or other to build higher. Its just about the shadows.
Human sized architecture, not being dwarfed by the buildings surrounding you is pleasant
Cities with skyscrapers are hotter because de heat stay in the buildings. Also less sunlight in the streets and there are ugly, grey or mirror facades 🤮
It's not just about space and historic value. It's also about climate. Tall skyscrapers reflect a lot of sunlight making it very warm during summer, and such tall buildings are obstructing natural airflow meaning a lot of polution will stick around during autumn and winter when the weather is more foggy.
Although major cities in Europe were bombed flat in WWII, they rebuilt their buildings in their original form - so we have these beautiful towns and cities.
You know you're in a European city when a church is the tallest building.
13:00 But Mexico DF is subduing not because it sits on top of a "muddy" ground, but because it's on top of a covered lake (the ancient city, Tenochtitlan, was build on an isle of lake Texcoco, just like Venice); and because they keep draining the lake with illegal water extractions, the city keeps going down.
I live in Edinburgh Scotland and I'd hate to see skyscrapers being built here.
Moin moin IWrocker as we say here instead of Hello in northern Germany. Just paused the vid at 4:15 and like to add something for interest. In whole Germany it wasn´t allowed to build building higher than 22m or even lower as the highest point of a city has to be the church. this low is called „Berliner Traufhöhe“
In Europe they also do amazing conversions of old buildings with modernisation also is is so great to drive into the ring in Paris the old preserved city lived for a while just by Notra Dam was a wonderful experience you can walk every where or use the inexpensive metro which goes everywhere.
I like the fact you said that the church was the highest building in the beginning of the video. Because back in the day people were not allowed to build higher than the church
The problem with skycrapers is a logistics one.
If there are more than a few in a small area, that means you have to move a greater number of people in and out of that area every day.
This leads to traffic jams.
They are not a symbol of economic power, they are a symbol of spending hours wasted every day travelling.
I like the fact that we don't have many Skyscrapers in Europe. It makes them more special and they don't overcrowd the buildings our ancestors built!
We allow skyscrapers in the UK - The New Barbarism.
I feel like most European cities have several 500-1000 year old buildings in them, it'd be a tragedy to ruin that history.
I also think it's worth mentioning that European cities are much nicer to live in because of the older and more organic layout. There's usually a better balance between residences, shops, restaurants, parks etc. and there's better walkability. In the US, everything is zoned, streets are straight and built in grids and you can't do anything without a car.
His point about skyscrapers making housing affordable is just plain false, hell, NYC rent is higher than rent over here in the netherlands and yet they have so many skyscrapers.
And to add onto that, the american viewpoint from the video you're watching really skews the actual reasoning behind our urban planning, our cities have a way different structure because not everything is based around cars. He keeps saying skyscrapers would make life easier while in reality doing that in our cities wouldn't just be an eyesore, it doesn't actually make life any easier, if anything it would require urban planning like the US which those that know how convenient walkable cities are would despise. Large buildings mean large spaces needed for people's vehicles close to the building, meaning large parking lots, meaning large distances between everything. Which, in my opinion, sounds like a slippery slope.
Skyscrapers aren't actually a good solution to housing, so I am not sure why the video goes on about them as if they are. Generally speaking mid-rises tend to be better, as they are usually built longer to compensate. Skyscrappers on the other hand tend to be a much more expensive solution to begin with, so the apartments you get might be larger but they are also expensive in the first place. London instead has a reliance on satellite towns which people commute in from and this has been cemented with the Elizabeth Line (AKA Crossrail).
However London has many areas going towards midrise to accommodate a growing population, such as the redevelopment of Battersea Power Station, altho that also has gentrification going on but this is due to a different issue in that private developers will always want to get as much money as possible, that is why they build things in the first place. The government needs to hire it's own builders and architects instead of relying on greedy for-profit contract private developers.
When I think of the tall buildings I don't think of skyscrapers just apartments where a lot of people live
My first apartment was on the 12th floor in a town called Partille in Sweden. There were several buildings of that height in a line. Have not seen buildings higher than that were i have lived. And i have lived in several different cities in Sweden.
That part about there being mud under Berlin made me think of where i live in sweden, mölndal, there was a seabed here long ago, and when i was working at a construction site i watched them put the concrete pillars down, each one was 15m long, the first, hoisted up then they hit it kinda softly 2-3 times then pushed on it, it just got sucked down without ANY resistance. Next one was the same, the third one maybe 5m was sticking out of the ground when they ACTUALLY hit hard rock, so kinda like 40m down is where the newer buildings are build upon for stabilization. Was really cool to see actually, but just weird seing a concrete pillar 15m long just being pushed down like how you would push a stick down very loose mud or something.
Also no, building more skyscrapers would not fit most european countries, we have our identity being more "flat" with our buildings, there exist tons of really cool buildings, they just do not need to be tall. It would kinda make it feel less like europe, most big cities here have alot of parks, trees and other such things that makes it feel more open, skyscrapers would destroy that feeling + all the views from high points, looking out, you can see more when the general line of buildings is relativly short.
Like spanish... At Paris, the most beautifull views are at the top of Montparnesse... because you can't see that... horrific building.
We love our history and, by law you can't build tall... it's like... consider that the right law is to PRESERVE THE BEAUTY of the city... for the rest.
In Spain... Much more (even) in Italia, where i've lived for years...
At Perugia (where i lived, people prefer to mantain wealthy the monuments, much more than in mantain better the infrastructures...
It's cultural...
The figure for London is incorrect. There are currently 112 highrises (100 m/328 ft) and 36 skyscrapers (150 m/492 ft).
I know Americans don't really care about other countries. But if they make a video about Europe, the data should be correct.
When the Eifel-Tower was built they said the same. You have the best view from the Eifel-Tower because it is the only place where you can't see it.
One reason is probably because architecturally they aren't particularly and secondly the cities of Europe are so much older than most North American/Canadian ones and the technology required to build buildings that high didn't exist in the 18th & 19th century when most most major European cities were already built.
London's issue is that everybody wants to live there. If governments would understand that companies, that provides work, should be spread across the country and across the land instead them all collecting in one or few cities centrals, the people wouldn't need to gather into the cities either. Or worse, have suburbs 20km away and then DRIVE EVERY GOD DAMN DAY IN THEIR MILLIONS to the city for work.
Remote working opportunities, as well as limiting the amount of companies headquarters in one area are the keys.
It's a vicious cycle that can only lead to worse conditions for the citizens and high rent and urban sprawl if not taken seriously.
People gather where there's work, companies found their HQ's and offices where there are people as a workforce...
Hungarian here.
Huge applause to you, because:
1. You were curious, and not exceptionalist, till the end and tried to avoid the annoying, typical "wow"ing.
2. Historical, economical, legal and even geological insight was given.
3. Qustion to viewers was set at the end.
In my opinion, skyscrapers can be benefitial, but only if historic outlook preservation and general urban development rules and environment protection are prioritized.
Not a criticism Ian, just an observation.
You said "Paris, France." at one point. In just about any other country in the world, merely by saying Paris, would everyone know you meant the one in France. Only US Americans typically say 'Paris, France' due to the, at least, 23 cities named Paris in the USA. Cheers.
Let me just say that the reviewed video is a little misleading. Yes we don't have so much skyscrapers but 100m is about 30 usable floors...there's a lot of buildings in Europe above 30 floors. Go see photos of Benidorm, Spain. Nevertheless, yes we have less.👍
Optimus Maximus
4 minutes ago
Apparently the central Paris arrondisement around the Eiffel tower doesn't have any skyscapers because of a chaotic maze of unmapped tunnels dug underneath it. Gypsum and limestone had been mined beneath Paris since the 13th century. As the city grew, so did the tunnels, but nobody bothered to keep track of how many were being dug or how far they extended in any particular direction.A handful of Parisian suburbs were swallowed up by subterranean mine shafts over the next few centuries, and by the 1700s entire sections of Paris were dropping through the ground. City officials were appropriately baffled, as none of them had any idea that Paris was essentially sitting on top of a giant quarry. King Louis XIV sent some men to investigate why the earth was eating their city, and they discovered that pretty much all of Paris was in danger of collapsing, as it was built atop miles and miles of fragile quarries that, once again, nobody had bothered to keep track of. Improvements to the tunnels were immediately begun, but despite the numerous catastrophes, France continued boring dangerous holes beneath its capital city until the late 1800s. The French government finally got wise to the fact that they were essentially digging Paris a giant grave in the 1950s, and since then almost all of the tunnels have been declared off-limits.The city has weight restrictions imposed on buildings to keep from putting too much strain on the threadbare mine shafts beneath them, hence Paris' lack of skyscrapers. However, with sections of the tunnels still regularly collapsing, all it will take is a small tremor to bury the whole city (Source: historydaily.org).La Défense is a major business district located 3 kilometres west of the city limits of Paris and is far enough away from the tunnels of the inner city to permit the erection of skyscrapers.
And what bqffles me is how nothing is being done to fix it. Like... you could work out and reinforce those spaces for mass parking (= better streets above !), an air - filtering system and even algae farms to make biollgical oil (US invasion incomming)
Personally, I do not like big flats. Mine is 28m2 and I'm ok with it. :D In a big spaces I feel anxious.
In Warsaw now the most expensive flats are... little. :)
Re: more properties (or trains) lowering the rent... Don't see it happening, myself - there are already more properties for rent than renters to use them in the majority of places. And yet there are LOTS of homeless people. Could just be me, but I'm thinking it would be better for everyone to make all those empty properties available for 'peppercorn rent' (basically, renter pays upkeep, utilities, rates/taxes) - the landlord doesn't have to pay rates on empty buildings; the renter can bathe and is thus much more likely to gain employment; the city doesn't have to spend on cops to treat people like vermin. Wins all 'round.
Of course, that would never work, because landlords can claim empty properties as tax write-offs, and large-scale landlords have deep political pockets.
In reality during the medieval, in the "Comuni age" here in Italy we used to have "skyline" and "skyscrapers": this was due to the phenomenon of the towers: basically from the XII century rich and influential families would compete to construct the highest tower to show off their power. The city in which this phenomenon was more present was Bologna: search on the internet for "medieval Bologna" and you would understand what I am talking about".
This phenomenon went so out of control that during the end XIII and XIV century Melany cities councils outlawed this towers, imposing to the families of demolish them or significantly lowering their high (in some Italian city are still present the "torri mozzate" (severed tower)). Only the tower of town halls (the simbols of temporal power) and the church or Thier clock towers (the simbols of spiritual powers) were allowed to have significant high.
Anyway in many Italian cities for centuries survived those regulations born to put an end at the towers and were (I don't know for sure but probably in some cases still are) incorporated in the city regulations or simply just as a tradition until the XX century, thus the facto been a barrier to the first development of skyscraper.
An example of this tradition surviving in some way to this day is Milan: the statue of the Virgin Mary (the so called Madonnina) put at the top of the cathedral was for centuries the highest point in the city. So when finally in the XX century the first skyscraper of the city took the title of the highest building from the cathedral, a copy of the Madonnina was created to be placed on the top of the Pirelli tower.
Also both the Palazzo Lombardia and the Alliaz tower got they copy of the Madonnina on their top when at they opening they became the highest skyscraper in the city
To be exact, Turkey is 95% in Asia, so it can't be considered an European country. Russia is 77% in Asia, at best it can be considered as an Eurasian country.
Scyscrapers are not making rent cheaper, they are just too expensive to build and maintain. If you go for cheap rent you will build midrises. They are way better at building affordable rental appartments. Skyscrapers really suck at accomodating alot of people for a low price, because they pretty much do the opposite.
funfact: the cathedral in my small german town is actuall 2,5 times older than the entire US (build around 1250-1300)
Why? Well, skyscrapers are dominant, ugly buildings that destroy the centuries-old historical beauty of cities, period.
You stated in previous videos that you havent been traveling outside the US. I find it funny to think that youve probably never been in a building older than 200 years. Which is probably true for most americans. Whereas in Europe most people have visited historical architecture many times or even live next to it. Just funny to think about.
Skyscrapers don't make life easier. They make life unlivable because they are not scaled for humans. There is no community in a skyscraper.
Also rents are not cheap in major American cities regardless of skyscrapers.
In my city you can't build anything over three floors anymore, to avoid what is called visual contamination
the guy in the video seems very pro skyscrapers lol. i live in london and no i dont want lots of skyscrapers. there awful, remove views, trap heat and pollution, look ugly ext.
USA, one thing that I have to say seem like a bullshit -
did skyscraper apartments in f.e new York that are one of the most overpriced " homes " you can buy, ever lowered anyones rent ?
There are strict regulations in Europe that prevent the construction of very high buildings. For instance in Athens Greece, the Parthenon would be hidden if the city had skyscrapers, so they are prohibited. In Berlin there are problems with the soil, no firm ground, there are laws protecting the skyline, like in Paris for instance, sometimes an airport is nearby or used to be nearby so they didn't allow/won't allow tall buildings so that they avoid accidents, etc etc.
I live near Brussels so I am familiar with skyscrapers that have been built in the city center next to historical buildings. It is just a mess. So thumbs up for cities that have banned skyscrapers from the historic city center 👍
It is also so that skyscrapers are waz more expensive to build than a 4 or 5 story apartment building because of the structural integrity needed and the logistics to build it all, etc.
Most often it is just cheaper and in the end more effective to build 5 small apartment buildings instead of an apartment tower.