@Labruunt @BurchertMichael actually quite the opposite. By putting people closer together you get an efficiency of scale. Suburbia and single family homes are incredibly inefficient. There's a sweet spot. I'm not sure where it is, balancing land use, population density, etc... but with people closer together in medium rise buildings, you get a more efficient use of space, and public transport works even better.
@BurchertMichael @Labruunt I'm not suggesting every building be 20 stories high. I agree that the sweet spot is somewhere in 5-10. But I think that we are gonna always have a need for the occasional taller building.
@quixoticgeek @BurchertMichael @Labruunt More specifically (and this is the thing that blows NIMBY minds), 5-8 story buildings are *denser* in terms of floor/area ratio than nearly all towers. The higher you build, the more floor space per storey gets taken up by lift shafts, utility conduits (pumping water higher is a rough curve to bend!), and then just general airspace gaps required for access and quality of life.
So if you are given an empty city block to build on, you can house more people with terraced five-storey structures than you can with a 20-storey tower.
@spacehobo @quixoticgeek @Labruunt
Yes. In reality e.g. in Bremen, Germany 'Gründerzeit' even 3-5 storey perimeter blocks, bike friendly, green space etc, with reasonably sufficient flat sizes are way more densely populated than the 60/70ies high concrete block areas on the outskirts.
@quixoticgeek @Labruunt
Sure but he sweet spot for a 'sustainable' (new) building is around 5-8 storeys.