Mini-review: Chapter 1 of Wonder City

In my last post I critiqued the introduction to Lynn Ellsworth’s new anti-YIMBY book, Wonder City. Having just finished Chapter 1, I thought I would add my thoughts.

Ellsworth seems to be primarily motivated by a fear of something called “hyper-density”. She writes that New York faces a choice between “a hyper-dense city of towers [and]… a human-scaled vision of urban life” (p. 7).  She writes that hyper-density “means at least 100 housing units per acre” (p. 9) and quotes some architects who defined hyper-density that way (p. 10) and wrote that “the historic Edwardian six- or seven-story blocks scattered throughout historic London are the model for ‘just right’ Goldilocks urban density” (p. 10-11).  She equates hyperdensity with the most sterile parts of Manhattan, places with “canyons [that] are cold, windy and dark; their streetscapes are bleak as can be” (p. 7) while less dense places “have parks and grass.. Their streets are lined with small businesses…” (id.)

In other words, Ellsworth seems to believe that 1) density should be capped at around 100 units per acre and 2) tall buildings are especially harmful because 3) too much height and density creates bleak and sterile places.

Where do I disagree? First, even if you believe that 30-story buildings are problematic, smaller buildings are compatible with higher densities, and “100 units per acre” is an overly strict threshold. Second, I think her equation with tall buildings and sterility is questionable.

Even if density is defined broadly as “gross density” (that is, density including roads, parks and other non-residential uses) some denser areas seem to be perfectly satisfactory urban places.  New York City’s Yorkville has 180 households per acre (gross), according to the Center for Neighborhood Technology’s “H&T Index.”. It is dominated by low-rise buildings on its east-west streets, but its north-south streets have some taller buildings.  It seems to be a perfectly satisfactory place to live.   The median household income is just over $160,000, indicating that people who can afford to live elsewhere are willing to live there.   76 percent of workers in the neighborhood use public transit to get to work, indicating that it is easy to get around Yorkville without a car.  Most of Yorkville has a Walkscore of well over 90, indicating a profusion of small businesses.  Even the self-storage facility at 424 east 90^th Street, hardly a hub of urban vitality, has a Walkscore of 100.

Even areas with taller buildings hardly resemble Ellsworth’s vision of hyperdense places as places with “streetscapes as bleak as can be.” (p. 7) Tudor City, a two-block long complex of 14-25 story buildings in block groups with densities ranging from 43 to 305 households per acre* certainly is far more dense than Ellsworth seems to endorse. But it also seems to be desirable even Ellsworth’s own criteria.  Ellsworth praises low-rise areas as having “parks and grass… [and] streets [that] are lined with small businesses.” (p. 7).  Tudor City includes a park and numerous small businesses.   To my untrained eye, it looks far more attractive than Hudson Yards (which is kind of sterile).

There are tall-building areas that are arguably more sterile than Tudor City. Ellsworth criticizes the work of Vishaan Charkrabarti (author of A Country of Cities) because “he holds out the gentrified Lafayette Park Towers in Detroit (a complex of anti-urban slab apartments built on top of a demolished Black urban neighborhoods) as a model of success.” (p. 22).  What Ellsworth doesn’t tell you is that Lafayette Park Towers is in a block group with only 31 units per acre.   Whatever this area is, it is not hyper-dense.  Similarly, she cites Manhattan’s Hudson Yards as an example of a sterile area (p. 7) but Hudson Yards has fewer than seven households per acre. 

Ellsworth cites numerous experts in support of her vision, but these experts are a bit more nuanced. She invokes writer Jane Jacobs in support of her views.  But Jacobs wrote that the ideal urban places have at least 100 dwelling units per acre; she writes that “in Brooklyn Heights, this is evidently not enough.  Where the average there falls off to 100 units to the net acre, vitality falls off.” (p. 211, Death And Life of Great American Cities).  (In fairness, Jacobs is writing about net density; a place with 100 units per acre net may have a much lower gross density).  Jacobs also was not a rigid opponent of tall buildings: she described Midtown Manhattan’s Lever House and Seagram Building as the city’s “extraordinary crown jewels”.

Ellsworth also writes that architect Jan Gehl thinks that “Six-to-eight story buildings are best.” (p. 31)  But Gehl’s position is also more nuanced: in a 2016 interview, he states : “If you stand in front of the Empire State Building, you can’t really guess how tall it is, because it meets the street in a friendly way. It all depends on how these big buildings land on the ground and the spaces they create. .. It’s not so important how high the building is, or how much it looks like a perfume bottle, it’s more important how it interacts with the city. “