living in skyscrapers is no different than living in any apartment building, except the larger number of apartments with nice views.

what modern skyscapers are doing wrong is putting in only large-footprint high-end retail (like department stores) on the street level, or nothing at all. A zoning change to require small retail stalls at the street level would go a long way to making cities more livable. And all those people living upstairs generate a lot of foot traffic to help all sorts of businesses thrive. (what I'm talking about overall is what makes midtown NY so unpleasant compared to other NYC neighborhoods)

It is different. if you are very high up there is too much wind for a balcony and you have no relationship with street life (people look like ants). 5-stories aka Paris-size is human scale, anything much taller isn't. The higher the floor, the less frequently people leave their building.

>what modern skyscapers are doing wrong is

...is not mandating proper insulation/noise-proofing.

> The sweet spot is densely packed urban areas that are built on the human scale.

Near the subway, and surrounded by historical buildings and nice architecture ... where an apartment usually costs an exorbitant price.

It's fascinating to me that folks see clear market signals like this and don't see it as an indication that we need to build more of it.

It's not that it's very expensive to build (well, it's not cheap either), it's that there's so little supply and so much demand.

4 floors high blocks of flats with shops on the ground floor are such a nice compromise in cities. Eastern Europe gets this right.