Remember, it's not "a cathedral to uber-wealth." It's a damn building, which was built because people will pay to live in it.
Also, the 22 percent source is an interesting skim.
Wouldn't the sort of people who'd buy into these also be the sort of people who can easily afford multiple homes and also not 5-person families / unit sort of thing? I wonder if the multiplier for sq. ft unit / sq. ft land would outweigh the fractional decrease in average people / unit.
I'm sorry, Washington Post, but people buying $7m condos ain't gentrifying shit. Those in the market for new 4000sqft condos-in-the-sky aren't buying a 5 percent stake in your converted canning plant in Chelsea no matter how vintage the brickwork is. They're buying to get away from the atmosphere, not to breathe it.Prices at 432 Park start at $7 million
So lemme tell ya a little tale about Pioneer Square. I first started mixing there in 1995. There was a lady I'd see walking in (talking 2, 3pm) who would say "want some crack?" If you said no she'd say "got any crack?" If you again said no she'd say "want a date?" Persistent, she was. Toothless also. And not at all out of character. There were people who lived in Pioneer Square. There were also people who had addresses who lived in Pioneer Square. My friend Gary had an artist's loft in Pioneer Square. He was one of eighteen people in an un-remodeled sweatshop with thrown-up gypboard dividers sharing a bathroom without a shower for $150 a month. And then "artist's lofts" became a thing. The owners of Gary's building determined that they could make a great deal more than $2500 a month if they kicked out all the artists, put up real walls (and bathrooms) and charged four tenants $2000 a month for that nice, bohemian living. Now there are people with jobs living in Pioneer Square. And while the Colorbox had been paying its rent on time for ten years, Washington Mutual offered more because suddenly there were banking customers. And now that there's banking customers, there's a Starbucks. And since the brave folx paying $2000 a month made it safe for the other yuppies, a whole bunch of buildings started tearing themselves up and putting in parking and suddenly you can buy "converted lofts" for $300k. Suddenly it's a neighborhood and that means noise ordinances. After all, Pioneer Square Joint Cover is an attractive nuisance; there was that stabbing that one year back that nobody remembers. So let's shut the clubs down at midnight, shall we? And before too long, the thriving culture that brought those brave "artists" has completely displaced the artists. You've been gentrified. It is, in fact, a domino effect: someone classes the joint up without defending the things that made it hip. Eventually all that's left are piano bars and Crate & Barrel. But note that none of the steps listed above involved building 90-floor condo buildings offering dwellings for $7m a pop. Gentrification happens when people who are more comfortable wish to live amongst people who are less comfortable. Their money, left untended, drags the general atmosphere up to their level. Gentrification isn't necessarily a bad thing always - few would prefer the entrepreneurial crack whore to a Washington Mutual. However, gentrification for its own sake will kill culture through gradual climate change. A 90 story skyscraper isn't gradual. That right there is an Extinction Level Event, a Chixulub-grade Neighborhood Ender if ever there was one. Thing of it is, nobody's building that shit in Pioneer Square because the kind of people who live in $7m apartments don't want entrepreneurial crack whores within three zip codes of their parking spot. How far do you have to get from 4th and Park in midtown Manhattan before you find a "bad neighborhood?" More than that, how many people do you think are trying to decide between the $7m fuck-you condo in the sky or the $1m converted warehouse in Bed-Stuy? That's my point. If we're talking about massive skyscrapers full of rich people, shit been gentrified, and it been gentrified to the mufukkin horizon.
It seems fairly obvious that if you condense the super-rich into smaller and smaller areas (trick them into spending more money on less space, as these skycondos are essentially doing), then logically there is more housing space left for everyone else. More space, less competition, lower prices. That's theoretically the domino effect. So the super-rich flee to the sky, the medium-super-rich have more options on Long Island, the pretty-fucking-rich move back into the rest of Manhattan and suddenly Brooklyn is a bit cheaper. Or something. On paper it makes sense to me. In practice, you've identified a problem which I agree with -- it's too abrupt. Also, this sort of thing assumes a trivial cost of moving, which is false. But over a long time, it may have an effect on the composition of neighborhoods.
It seems equally obvious that the "super-rich" aren't likely to allow themselves to be condensed. Anyone who can choose between a $7m condo in Manhattan or a private island in the Caribbean isn't particularly looking for "cozy." If they're building up, it's so they can piss down on the poor not because they're trying to reduce their footprint. Lemme tell you another story: 1100 Wilshire. Built in '86 during a similar "build moar and taller" boom, 1100 Wilshire has been a ghost structure for most of its existence, never more than 10% occupied. However, during the go-go housing boom of 2005-2007, some fucktard came up with the idea to turn it into condos (never mind that there weren't any grocery stores downtown at the time). Better yet, they'd charge an additional $50,000 for every floor up you went. "Exclusivity" don'chaknow. Sales crested at about 18%, and then everybody who bought in sued because the listed square footage was a lie. It was settled out of court. So now you have a formerly-vacant office building that becomes a currently-vacant condo building. What do? Well, what 1100 Wilshire did is what everybody does: they get renters in just so the place doesn't look like a ghost town. And those renters, by and large, are spoiled children from USC. So maybe, just maybe, 1100 Wilshire is taking away pressure to keep the USC dorms from being gentrified. But you know what? There's shit-tons of neighborhoods being gentrified around DTLA and the guys buying into 1100 Wilshire are three or four degrees removed from the guys buying in Echo Park. Now, of course, prices are up through the roof on ridiculous DTLA condos because the foreigners are swooping in. But nowhere, no how in any aspect of this discussion did it have anything whatsoever to do with gentrification.It seems fairly obvious that if you condense the super-rich into smaller and smaller areas (trick them into spending more money on less space, as these skycondos are essentially doing), then logically there is more housing space left for everyone else.
I think the Washington Post etc thinks they can be tricked into doing both. I'll stop arguing -- I don't really know what to believe, and the headline does seem wrongheaded at first glance. Further, if what b_b mentioned is true, then the whole thing is a ridiculous farce. What the hell is the point of having art or jewelry if it's in another country? God.It seems equally obvious that the "super-rich" aren't likely to allow themselves to be condensed. Anyone who can choose between a $7m condo in Manhattan or a private island in the Caribbean isn't particularly looking for "cozy." If they're building up, it's so they can piss down on the poor not because they're trying to reduce their footprint.
I've heard elsewhere that it's not really New Yorkers buying these condos. They described them on Morning Edition as "the world's most expensive safe deposit boxes." Apparently, if you're super rich in the Mid East, Russia, or Asia, it's a lot easier to buy a $10M condo in NY, and use it to park your art and jewelry than to have it unprotected in your home country. They don't free up space for anyone when they're neither moving population around, nor adding population to, the city. In fact, the Times had a story about the penthouse in 432, It's a $95M behemoth that was bought by a couple hedge fund managers as a place to have parties occasionally.
Heard the same on NPR. And they keep building these, but there isn't really any demand for them. So now there are a bunch of really expensive apartments that nobody's actually living in, next too a bunch of really expensive apartments that nobody's using.
I like the idea of pencil towers. I think they're a great, elegant use of space. As long as they don't fall over. Tangent: I wonder if Japan will see rent prices drop as their population declines and existing units empty. In the next 30–50 years, Tokyo could become a great place for (relatively) cheap rent and intelligent community. Bonus points if you're a nerd.The pencil tower isn't a pretty solution to the problem of exorbitant housing costs, or an elegant one