In a walkable city, density is one of the most important factors. And high rise buildings are a great way to build a dense, compact urban core, as opposed to endless sprawl that imevetably becomes car dependent. You see this in practice even in North American cities, because the urban core is often still walkable with good public transport, and not only are cars often not needed, they likely are even slower than walking or transit (only problem is that downtown housing in the US/Canada is obscenely expensive ans the average worker can’t actually live in it).

But, wvenever this is mentioned, even in urbanism communities that explicitly favour density and walkability, people still dislike the idea of dense high rises and complain that “you can’t see anything out your window except the skyscraper across from you!” Even more so when a picture of urbanism in a place they already don’t like, like the USSR or China, crops up.

For this reason, a lot of new developments with high rises place them well away from each other, which lowers the average density and frankly makes walking between multiple skyscrapers tiring, especially in Canadian cities where it snows a lot. There are even posts where people have done the calculations to find that an many high rise districts can barely even beat old European city centres that have buildings not more than 5 or 10 floors, but packed extremely closely together with narrow, pre-car streets. At which point, why not just build low rises closer together instead of the more expensive and resource intensive high rises then?

Which is another thing. You know what is packed together a lot? Houses and low-rises. If you think a 20 meter margin is way too narrow for high rises, wait till you find out about townhouse complexes that have 2 meter margins between the front doors of houses on either side. Guess what? You can’t see past the other side of houses in that case either! And you still have to strain your neck to see the sky through your window! Speaking from experience because I live in a townhouse complex (mine is older so the gap between mine and the other side is larger, but I’ve definitely seen new developments that place the entry doors on either side so close you can basically tough shoulders with the person living across from you, and even with the one I’m in, no you can’t see past the other side). Same with those old European cities everyone likes so much, if you’re on the second floor of an all five story district with a one lane street separating you and the building across from you, your view is just as blocked as being on the 20th floor of a 50 floor high rise district! I’ve also lives in low rise apartments, which actually has pretty wide clearances from the buildings around it, and I honestly don’t find looking at the street that much more exciting than looking at another high rise. Not that I thought it was a bad thing, I don’t spend a lot of time staring out my window to begin with, and honestly don’t know anyone that do in that way characters in old school cartoons are depicted as doing.

Another thing I hear talked about is that having high rises so close blocks out the sun in your unit. But, do people actually want the sun directly through their windows? I always find it annoying because if it’s in my room, it’s almost always directly in my eyeline, and it turns your room into a sauna in the summer. Isn’t the brightness of the mere presence of the sun enough during the day? It’s not like you’re in total darkness if you’re under the shadow of another building.

What do you think? Should high rises be far apart? Or close together? How important are views through the window and does it outweigh things like density and proximity? I’m I totally wrong and an idiot for thinking packing skyscrapers close together is a good thing? I’ve never actually lived in a high rise (wish I could, but they’re all so fucking expensive in my city because they’re marketed as “luxury” apartments), so if anyone who actually lives in one where your view is blocked by the next high rise, please share what your actual experience and thoughts are on that!