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Yeah... Just like the European cities. They have NO skyscrapers.
There are a lot of exceptions, but Europe definitely has a lot of cities that have few or almost no skyscrapers and yet are still very dense.
Anyhow, Paris isn't a great example (though it has very few skyscrapers within the city proper), but major cities like Hamburg, Prague, Edinburgh, Turin and Copenhagen which are beautiful and vibrant despite their lack of skyscrapers (and for the most part, highrises). Additionally, these cities aren't museum relicts that have been forced into stagnation--these are all fully functioning cities with strong economies outside of tourism.
So much of Europe, I would say are good examples of vibrant non-sprawling cities without behemoths lurking over its population. I'd be interested in knowing cities anywhere that have what the aforementioned cities have.
For example in Denver you have LoDo and the Capitol Hill area that is very popular for residents to live and even in downtown Pueblo condos are going up all the time near our Riverwalk. The trend in most cities is for people to move back downtown.
The trend is a migration to areas near downtown business districts, not necessarily in the downtown proper. Some people have moved into the actual business districts, but the pricetag has been too prohibitive for many. However, and this is pretty common across the sunbelt, directly outside of the downtowns have been less expensive and ultimately more attractive.
There are a lot of exceptions, but Europe definitely has a lot of cities that have few or almost no skyscrapers and yet are still very dense.
Anyhow, Paris isn't a great example (though it has very few skyscrapers within the city proper), but major cities like Hamburg, Prague, Edinburgh, Turin and Copenhagen which are beautiful and vibrant despite their lack of skyscrapers (and for the most part, highrises). Additionally, these cities aren't museum relicts that have been forced into stagnation--these are all fully functioning cities with strong economies outside of tourism.
So much of Europe, I would say are good examples of vibrant non-sprawling cities without behemoths lurking over its population. I'd be interested in knowing cities anywhere that have what the aforementioned cities have.
This isn't really the American model. With the exception of several older Northeastern cities, most of our cities didn't really begin to expand until after the automobile became commonplace. Our cities grew according to those demands.
Yea, I realize that's not the American model. I was looking for exceptions to it (and they'll probably all be in the NE, but maybe someone will know a little something here or there).
You're looking for cities without detached, single-family houses. What makes a city feel dense and urban is not skyscrapers, but row-houses and low-rise apartment buildings. Most of these are found in Europe and the Northeast. This density provides a critical-mass that creates walkability and promotes street life. Unfortunately, we stopped building low- and mid-rise apartments in the inner-city 80 years ago. I think the real problem was parking. You can provide an underground garage for a massive high-rise, but it's not economical in a low-rise. We built low-rise apartments and attached, so-called "townhouses" in the suburbs, but they are surrounded by so much parking they don't feel walkable or urban.
This is also true of most American cities outside of the Northeast too. The downtowns of most southern and western cities are business districts with few residential occupants, and other parts of the cities are the "real" city.
But the city centers/CBDs of Southern and Western cities are the traditional downtowns of those cities--which, at one point, contained lots of residents before the days of urban renewal and the like. La Defense, if I'm not mistaken, was created from scratch as a business district.
La Defense is Paris's business district, it's not really where the people live--and it's relatively new. The real city is still the historic, lowrise Paris.
La Defense is Paris main skyscrapers district but is not the largest concentration of office, in Europe the large majority of office are low-rises building.
The famous Champs Elysees, Avenue Haussmann or Avenue de l'Opera are over 90% offices, nobody live here.
People tend to think that office = skyscrapers but not at all the case;
The main biggest business district have only one skyscraper (Hotel Concorde Lafayette), this area is around the Champs Elysees and Opera district.
I would not say that La Defense is new, the district has 50 years old and even for Paris it is not new.
I don't know why you said that la Defense is not the real city, for what I see and according the equipement and people in this district La Defense is more the real Paris than Montmarte place des Tertre or Louvre district where 90% of people are tourist.
Anyway even the central part of Paris has skyscraper.
Montparnasse tower
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