This is the urbanist myth that just won’t die: the one very mistaken idea about housing and density held by a lot of well-meaning urbanists who we agree with on most other topics. We’re talking about the belief that roughly five storeys maximum is a universal “optimal” or “ideal” building height. This idea comes in large part from Danish designer and architect Jan Gehl, voted the second most influential urbanist in modern history, after Jane Jacobs. In his book Cities for People, he argued that taller buildings are out of scale with the human experience. “Above the fifth floor, offices and housing should logically be the province of the air-traffic authorities [...] they no longer belong to the city”, he claims.

Keep Urbanity rolling:

Join our Patreon for early releases, credit at the end of each video, and bonus content:   / ohtheurbanity  
Subscribe on YouTube:    / @ohtheurbanity  
Instagram:   / ohurbanity  
Twitter:   / ohurbanity  

For professional inquiries, please send us a message on Instagram or Twitter. Note that we may not be able to respond to all messages.

References:

The 100 Most Influential Urbanists: https://www.planetizen.com/features/1...
History of Greenwich Village: https://www.villagepreservation.org/r...
Greenwich Village/Soho Statistics: https://furmancenter.org/neighborhood...
Average Rent in Greenwich Village: https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/...
Jan Gehl on Why Tall Buildings Aren’t Necessarily Bad for Street Life: https://commonedge.org/jan-gehl-on-wh...
GIl Penalosa on tall buildings:   / 1688342976081068036