Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 269

I had a dinner in the suburbs this evening. And so in the afternoon today, I opened up Google Maps to figure out how I was going to get there.

I didn’t have my car with me — because I hate driving into the office — so in my mind, I was either going to take transit or take an Uber.

These are the time estimates that Google gave me:

It was going to take me over 4 hours to walk there. Over an hour to drive there. And 47 minutes to take the train there. Interestingly enough, cycling was also going to be faster than driving.

As soon as I saw this, I shut down the app and decided I would take the train. All I was interested in was the absolute fastest option. And for me at that moment, it was the train.

I recognize that this isn’t always the case. Sometimes driving is much faster than taking transit. It depends on a number of factors.

But as a general rule, when it comes to big and dense cities, you really can’t beat trains and bikes for moving the greatest number of people, as quickly as possible.

Seun Sangga is Seoul's first mixed-use complex.

Constructed between 1967 and 1972, the elaborate structure sits atop a strip of land measuring 50 m x 1.2 km, which had been flatted during the Second World War as a way to contain the spread of fire in the event of an air raid and to act as an evacuation corridor.

It's a modernist development that is very much of this period. It's massive, complicated in section and, in many ways, completely disconnected from its surrounding urban context. Flanking the various buildings are elevated and covered walkways.

So it is perhaps not surprising that this development has followed a similar fate to many others of this era. While it was initially viewed as being quite modern and desirable -- it was one of the first buildings in Seoul to have elevators -- Seun Sangga was quick to start showing signs of decline.

In fact, by as early as the 1970s, the complex became known for its porn shops and a bunch of other informal economy-type activities.

It's an interesting, though familiar, story.

If you'd like to learn more, I recommend you check out this episode of the Urbanist and this article from The Architectural Review . The photos in the article are good accompaniment to the audio-only Urbanist episode, so make sure you flip through them.

In other words, are tall buildings a prerequisite to competing in today's global economy? It's an interesting question. And Jason Barr -- professor of economics at Rutgers University-Newark -- does think they are an important ingredient. So much so that he wrote a book on the topic called, Cities in the Sky: The Quest to Build the World's Tallest Skyscrapers . While Jason does acknowledge that not every city needs them, he does suggest that not having them could hinder a global city :

If you look at Paris'  global ranking in terms of its importance in the world economy , as measured by the size and number of international firms, it's falling. Paris in 2000 was ranked fourth, and by 2020, it was down to eight, losing out to skyscraper cities such as Singapore and Dubai.

In the last decade, Paris has shrunk by 122,000 residents.  As reported by Forbes , "Many of those leaving are choosing either the suburbs or countryside around Paris, or they are relocating to France's smaller cities such as Bordeaux, Lyon, and Toulouse." By limiting its building stock, Paris is driving up housing prices, pushing out residents, and causing suburban sprawl.

While I agree that tall buildings are important "geography-shrinking machines", what we're really talking about is using land more intensely. We're talking about urban density. But you don't necessarily need tall buildings to have high population densities. Consider Barcelona, which is one of the densest cities in Europe, and consider this comparison between Paris (few tall buildings) and Vancouver (more tall buildings).

So is the argument simply that density is good for cities, and that tall buildings are one way to achieve that? Or is it that, now that cities like Paris are built out (albeit at very high densities), the only option for growth is to go up? I guess I'll have to read his book.