Being fond of modern architecture, I like the sight of skyscrapers (at least if they’re well designed), and I very much enjoy working in them. But the economics of building skyscrapers or more precisely, why it pays off to build them, isn’t entirely clear to me.
Obviously, skyscrapers allow you to get more office space on a given plot of land, which may be worth the trouble in densely populated areas where real estate is scarce and expensive (provided that local building regulations allow their construction). Then again, I’ve seen highrises in cities and metropolitan areas that have a rather low population density. The example I’ve seen is Johannesburg, South Africa, but I’m sure the example applies to other places as well. It has skyscrapers not just in the downtown CBD, but also in affluent suburbs that have started to form sub-CBDs for the surronding areas (Sandton, in the case of Johannesburg). These suburbia regions are built rather spaciously - big malls, wide freeways and avenues connecting them, gated communities and a lot of simply barren land in between. I guess land can’t be too expensive there, given this sort of use of land. Still, occasional skyscrapers rise from among these buildings. Not the 400+ metre supertower, but certainly highrises with a few dozen floors.
What’s the point of that? Wouldn’t it be cheaper for the developer to simply buy enough land to build the desired office space horizontally, rather than vertically?
My personal thoughts about why this happens have narrowed down to two hypotheses:
A matter of prestige (or phallic thinking?), leading a lot of businesses to prefer vertical rather than horizontal structures.
Transaction costs involved in buying large plots of land, and landowners who hold out in negotiations, trying to make the developer pay an overpriced amount for a plot of land needed to build vertically.
The advantages of spread out suburban low-rise buildings are indeed the low cost of land plus the lower cost of building outward rather than upward.
However, these have disadvantages as well. Which is quicker and easier to get around, a 100’x100’ (30m x 30m) building that is 20 stories high or a 200,000 sq ft. (20,000 sq. m) one-story building? For most office workers, the former is far preferable. The logic works the same way when you need to go outside. A core of 50 high-rises will attract restaurants and shops that serve the workers. A sprawl of 50 low-rise buildings are effectively isolated. Communities also tend to give incentives to get buildings to bundle together to lower costs of roads, sewers, and all the other infrastructure costs. Depending on location, communities may also get more tax revenue from dozens of homes rather than one single office building. Zoning plays a large part as well, since many communities want houses rather than industrial or commercially zoned areas.
The logic of how to build is both highly individualistic and structurally identical based on the dictates of an automobile culture. Edge cities were a balance between those. They are an acceptable suburban replica of the advantages of downtown minus what they see as the local version of disputable people.
As a worker in a complete like this, which would you rather do?
Take the elevator down 10 floors, or walk a 1/2 mile to the next building?
Most of the building that I’m seeing like this belong totally or at least mostly to one company.
In addition, it gives these corporate headquarters a highly visable and recognizable landmark.
“So take the freeway west until you see the big 3M headquarters, then take the next exit.”
When home in SE Michigan, I get all of the best and worst. World HQ and some of our company’s other offices are in large, multistory buildings. So, it’s easy to get to any floor. Except… from my office, I have to drive there (or call a shuttle). Then some other locations are acres in size – under one roof. The only choice there is to walk, or hitch a ride with a tradesman on an electric cart.
It’s primarily a matter of corporate ego, and it leads to both forms. Some companies like the prestige of being in a prominent skyscraper, while others like the prestige of having a sprawling “corporate campus.”
Being that the big 3M headquarters tower(s) is in Minneapolis, and given the winter weather, that is a big plus in the Winter. If they had a spread out campus, they would need gopher tunnels like the U of M campus has. (and even with the towers they have tunnels too… I did a small job for them once…crossed that bridge about a month before it fell)
That headquarters is in St. Paul*, not Minneapolis.
And the I-35 bridge that Pawlenty let fall down is heading North out of Minneapolis, quite the wrong direction for 3M, which is east on I-94.
*Actually Maplewood, a suburb to the east of St. Paul proper.
I’m only responding to your example of Sandton, which I think is a poor one - do you have any others? I think it’s a poor example because of the history of Johannesburg, which may be gleaned from here: Sandton - Wikipedia
Sandton essentially took over as flagship area because of Johannesburg city centre’s steady decay through the 80s and 90s. I also dispute the “wide freeways” and “empty barren land”, there isn’t much of either around Sandton.