London's skyline is a growing mess (Commentary)

[10023]

Anyway, let's not make this a "city vs. city" thing and get a good thread closed by the mods.

Comparing London and LA is pointless. Two cities could not be more different other than being A) big and B) somewhat decentralized. Neither has one of the world's great skylines. London is overall much more solidly and consistently (and IMO, attractively) "built" than LA, and much more pedestrian friendly. Much of that has to do with being almost 2,000 years older. Residential density is deceiving because so much of London is parkland and you can't find statistical units comparable to Census tracts to look at neighborhoods (I've tried finding data by postcode, but you can't get area measurements). LA has much better weather and Mexican food, so congrats on that.

That said, this thread isn't about population density it's about skyscrapers. It should be abundantly clear that one only has limited relation to the other (quick, which is more dense... Miami or Paris?). The two cities don't even have similar skylines... LA's is a traditional American downtown cluster and then a couple of corridors along main thoroughfares in West LA, whereas London's is more multi-nodal.


p.s. - more relevant than residential density is actually land values, and those are obviously extremely high in London.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by 10023

But 123 square miles is a huge area (and includes places like Lewisham and Greenwich which aren't particularly dense).

No, Inner London (the statistical unit) does not include Greenwich. It includes Lewisham though.

Originally Posted by 10023

The problem with using London's boroughs as statistical units is that almost none of them are either entirely central or entirely suburban. They radiate out from the Thames and into suburbia.

Just look at the shape of the Borough of Lambeth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Borough_of_Lambeth

This map shows population density in Greater London in mid-2012. It appears the northern part of Lambeth has about the same population density as its southern part. It's the middle part of Lambeth that has a higher population density (Stockwell, Brixton).

Originally Posted by 10023

London's parks also cover more land than Paris' do

Not really. Parks, woods, gardens, cemeteries, outdoor sports fields, and greenfields cover 27% of the City of Paris's territory (or 28 km²/11 mi² out of 105 km²/41 mi²). If we add the 3 inner suburban departments surrounding the City of Paris, which have more woods and parks than the city proper, particularly in the south-west and south-east, then it's 31% of City of Paris + inner suburbs (i.e. 239 km²/92 mi² out of 762 km²/294 mi²) that is made up parks, woods, gardens, cemeteries, outdoor sports fields, and greenfields. And beyond the inner suburban departments lie some very large royal forests (Versailles, St Germain en Laye, Montmorency, Rambouillet, Fontainebleau, etc.).

I doubt London's parks cover more area than in Paris. It's only a distorted vision that people have when they stay only in the central arrondissements of Paris. And if we include the royal forests beyond the inner suburbs, then Paris is much more wooded than Greater London.

This view shows some of the woods in the south-western inner suburbs immediately surrounding the City of Paris (in London we would be approximately in Wimbledon; it's the same distance from the middle of this picture to the center of Paris):

[New Brisavoine]

I've indicatd the contour of Inner London. That's the official statistical definition of it. It's the one I'm referring to when I give figures about Inner London.

[evilstewie]

Just to correct brisavoine

150m + complete and u/c

London 20
Paris 17

200m+ complete and u/c

london 7
paris 2

300m+ supertalls

London 1
paris 0



100m + u/c

London 17
paris 2


50m-100m u/c

London 68
paris 2

And i wont even mention the prep/demo and approved

[evilstewie]

Originally Posted by nito

Going by the 2012 population figures, Los Angeles has a total city area population density of 2,963/sq km, London in contrast stood at 5,285/sq km. I couldn’t ascertain the undeveloped mountain area of Los Angeles, but the problem with deducting such areas is that the process has to be reciprocated; for instance London’s Green Belt (the part inside the boundaries, but not including parks, heaths, green squares, rivers, canals, reservoirs, etc…) accounts for approximately 25% of London’s total area. At the end of the day I suppose it depends on how you define ‘same’.

London is also expanding at a rapid rate relative to many other cities such as Los Angeles on a per sq km basis, as detailed by the following rather basic chart that I produced back in 2012 based on total city area:


Coming back to the original thread topic, what makes that list interesting is the sheer number of towers (above 150m) planned across London – 4 u/c, 19 approved, and 23 proposed – completely dwarfs the present fifteen 150m+ towers.

As for the present discussion regarding skylines; it is a subjective topic so everyone will have their preference or reasons. I’m personally more interested in high quality architecture, improved street-level interaction and meeting the demands of a rapidly growing city, than an outline of the high-rise cityscape that has to be appreciated at a distance.

ive just clued myself up on ssc and for 150m+ there are at least nine 150m+ u/c in london
122 leadenhall 225m u/c
St georges wharf 181m u/c
20 fenchurch 160m u/c
One blackfriars 161m u/c
Baltimore wharf 150m u/c
Saffron square 150m u/c
Southbank tower 155m u/c
Riverside south 236m t1 basement floors u/c
Riverside south 189m t2 basement floors u/c

lots of 150m+ towers begin construction this year too with some cool 200m+ ones aswell

There are many more 100m + u/c too

Having looked at the figures it is crazy, there are more 100m+ towers under construction in london than the rest of the eu combined

It was revealed in the media a few days ago that there are 236 towers of 20fl+ that are u/c,demo/approved, im going there in 2016, im looking forward to seeing all these new towers, it will certainly be different.


In terms of europe, as brisavoine was mentioning.

Moscow is booming and has many tall good looking towers u/c, will be a dense cluster.

London is booming right now with many cool tall towers under construction with some great designs and quality.

Istanbul is building like crazy, so many towers under constructiom its going to be huge and is very underated imo.

Frankfurt is very slow right now and has been for a while.

Paris is also very slow with not much happening and has been slow for a while nothing expected to happen anytime soon.

Milan and warsaw are buiding faster than both and will soon climb up the rankings.
Obviously none if them compare to the big american and canadian skykines but london, moscow and istanbul are building big skylines now

[inSaeculaSaeculorum]

LA isn't dense. It's *crowded*. The built environment does not compliment the population density at all, whereas in London it does quite nicely. Decontextualizing stats to boost your city is a hobby here innit

[johnnypd]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

I lived between Oval and Camberwell Green in London, and it was as quite as the view of LA that you've picked.

The central areas of LA look more like this (and I picked that one completely randomly in a central area): https://www.google.com/maps?ll=34.04...-0.14&t=h&z=14

So try to be a bit more fair in your comparison! It's just unbelievable how people who have never lived in LA can be so deprecating about that city.

I've lived in both LA and London...

[johnnypd]

Originally Posted by inSaeculaSaeculorum

LA isn't dense. It's *crowded*. The built environment does not compliment the population density at all, whereas in London it does quite nicely. Decontextualizing stats to boost your city is a hobby here innit

Yes. I've mentioned this before but Santa Ana, CA has a population density of 12,451 per sq mile. Which makes it the fifth most densely populated large city (+250,000) in the USA. And yet it is totally suburban, fairly hostile to pedestrians and has few if any public areas with high pedestrian activity.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by nito

London is also expanding at a rapid rate relative to many other cities such as Los Angeles on a per sq km basis, as detailed by the following rather basic chart that I produced back in 2012 based on total city area:

Lol @ using 'population change per sq km'. Of course London will come out on top compared to NA cities still expanding their territory. 85% of Toronto's population growth occurs outside the 'City of Toronto' boundary. I imagine the same is true for LA and Houston. Gotta wonder how gullible some people are when they argue that Toronto only grew by 133,500 people 2000-2011.

[Pretext]

Originally Posted by muppet

London will have 4-6 dedicated highrise cluster zones that will get out of the way of the 14 protected 'viewing corridors' over 5 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. At the moment only 2 are extant and the other 4 are rising, hence the haphazard looking skyline at this stage - inevitably. Just give it a couple more years and pray the property bubble holds out long enough till completion.

Exactly

They are not building lots skyscrapers in the West End tourist areas where buildings and skylines are protected. Most of the building is in relation to the City, South London , Canary Wharf and the East End. London is a vast city in size and has a vast array of protected views, green areas and buildings.

The main skyscraper areas in London will be in terms of office space centered around the two major financial centres which are the City of London (the square mile) and it's fringes including the London Bridge Quarter, Shoreditch, City Road Basin etc and the other major financial centre at Canary Wharf in London's East End, an area which is also to attracting a lot of residential schemes.

Other mainly residential schemes are taking place at Vauxhall in South London, Elephant & Castle in South London, Stratford and the area around the 2012 Olympic Queen Elizabeth Park in the East End, the Greenwich Peninsula near to the O2 Arena in South London and Croydon which is again in South London.

There will be some tall buildings built as part of the Battersea/Nine Elms Scheme and at Waterloo but overall the major skyscraper clusters are often in neighbourhoods well away from the tourist heartlands of London.

It also should be noted that in terms of Waterloo the new buildings and regeneration is far better than what is there now, whilst in terms of Nine Elms it's currently a bleak industrial area, and a lot of the new scheme involves low level apartments, with the occasional tall building.

There are numerous regeneration and redevelopment schemes in London, with most of them involving turning urban wasteland, urban blight and post industrial areas in to attractive new hubs with luxury apartments and homes.

Ballymore's new London City Island at Leamouth, which is just east of Canary Wharf.

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Providence Tower near Canary Wharf - East London

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Royal Wharf - East End

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Glasshouse Gardens - Stratford

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Nine Elms & Battersea Redevelopment

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Park Royal City - Old Oak Common near Wormwood Scrubs

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Kings Cross Redevelopment

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Kings Cross Central

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The Movement Greenwich

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[chris08876]

London doesn't need high rises to be great. In fact, most of the charm is from its mid rises, low rises, and the history intertwined in them. Remember, street life/culture > bland high rises.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by isaidso

Lol @ using 'population change per sq km'. Of course London will come out on top compared to NA cities still expanding their territory. 85% of Toronto's population growth occurs outside the 'City of Toronto' boundary. I imagine the same is true for LA and Houston. Gotta wonder how gullible some people are when they argue that Toronto only grew by 133,500 people 2000-2011.

It's also quite misleading when they used the land area of London (and Toronto), but total area (including water) for the American cities. Which wouldn't have much of an effect on the numbers for Los Angeles and Houston, but in New York's case its area is over one third water. Its land area is only 784 sqkm.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by chris08876

London doesn't need high rises to be great. In fact, most of the charm is from its mid rises, low rises, and the history intertwined in them. Remember, street life/culture > bland high rises.

Yes, definitely. London's life is mostly away from its highrises. Some of that is because the best areas have never allowed them, or allowed few.

That said, with all the room for infill particularly to the south and east, highrises can address a lot of demand and add critical mass to those areas.

[Fresh]

Originally Posted by 10023

Maybe if it's rained and you step in a puddle. And what are you doing walking around in sandals anyway? Try wearing respectable shoes.

Aside from certain parts of West LA, Los Angeles is filthy. There is no part of London as dirty as the LA Basin south of I-10 or East LA.



Really?

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/...52c943b7418871

Disagree, I drove through Compton and it was noticeably cleaner and more attractive than the bit of London between Bank and Canary Wharf. Mayfair and Beverly Hills were comparably spotless.

Both are however great cities and I would argue the two most culturally influential cities in the world.

[10023]

Originally Posted by Fresh

Disagree, I drove through Compton and it was noticeably cleaner and more attractive than the bit of London between Bank and Canary Wharf. Mayfair and Beverly Hills were comparably spotless.

Both are however great cities and I would argue the two most culturally influential cities in the world.

The East End is probably the dirtiest part of London, but even that's not bad. You'll see trash on the streets in some parts of London on Saturday/Sunday morning, but only because people have been drinking on the street until 4am and leaving beer bottles around... it's all cleaned up pretty soon. Regardless, clean is the rule rather than the exception in London neighborhoods. LA just isn't very well maintained or manicured outside of a handful of west LA neighborhoods and a few places like Pasadena.

And New York is more culturally influential than LA, but those are probably the 3 in the Western, English-speaking world.


Anyway... skyscrapers.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Fresh

and I would argue the two most culturally influential cities in the world.

I wonder what 1.4 billion Chinese would have to say about that...

[10023]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

I wonder what 1.4 billion Chinese would have to say about that...

They'd probably agree. There is no way that Beijing, Shanghai or Hong Kong are anywhere near as culturally influential as London, NYC and LA.

Those Western cities are of course less influential in China than they are in the West, but on a global basis, any objective person would rank them at the top.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by 10023

They'd probably agree. There is no way that Beijing, Shanghai or Hong Kong are anywhere near as culturally influential as London, NYC and LA.

Influential for whom? Beijing is influential for 1.4 billion people. That's more people than Europe, North America, Australia, and NZ combined.

Most Chinese people have probably never seen a Hollywood movie. Same for most Indians.

Frankly the Westerners tend to be so self-centric... The Western world is just barely 1 billion people. Less than China or India.

[chicagogreg]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

Influential for whom? Beijing is influential for 1.4 billion people. That's more people than Europe, North America, Australia, and NZ combined.

Most Chinese people have probably never seen a Hollywood movie. Same for most Indians.

Frankly the Westerners tend to be so self-centric... The Western world is just barely 1 billion people. Less than China or India.

You are certainly right in regards to population, but in terms of economic output these Western cities still reign. But as China continues to open up economically and even more people move to already-massive cities like Shanghai, then we could be seeing a different urban landscape. Shanghai and Beijing have still massive capacities for growth, and they will certainly challenge the strongholds of London and NYC in terms of both cultural and economic influence in the future.

[New Brisavoine]

There are many cities with cultural influence in the world, not just two. That's what I challenged. It's a completely self-centric vision of the world. The world is far more than the Anglosphere. There are various cultural zones or spheres in the world, some more populated than the entire Western world. And each zone or sphere has its own culturally influential cities. London or NYC are completely meaningless for billions of human beings, just as Beijing or Cairo are completely meaningless for other billions of human beings. And yet each of them is also meaningful for billions (or hundreds of millions) of other human beings, just as are several other cities like Paris, Tokyo, Moscow, São Paulo, Mumbai, Istanbul, Seoul, and several more. You can't sum up the cultures of the world (which thanks God are still quite varied and heterogeneous despite globalization) with only two cities.