For some, tall buildings are testament to a modernized urban city. Skyscrapers race to the sky to capture the best unblocked horizon views, like trees and shrubs would for sunlight and survival. More importantly, they shine like a beacon of triumph standing above the rest and become the iconic landmark for everyone to see and be in awe.

Skyscrapers are man made wonders built to defy nature, history and natural order, and, are equipped with all of man’s engineering knowledge to directly challenge natural disasters and weather phenomenons. Even the designs of these tall magnificent structures are the works of art and an expression of the coming of a new era of lifestyle by modern architects. They form a mega-city skyline to fulfill man’s desire of living in the clouds. Magnificent and impressive as they are, do they have a sustainable eco-social footprint?

What’s with “up”?

Tall buildings and skyscrapers are all an American made dream that somehow went viral to other countries. The earliest record of skyscrapers were those in Chicago and New York where urban land was scarce hence buildings had to go vertically upwards to meet housing demands. Of course with hindsight, given a choice, we could’ve probably built things differently. But back then and in spite of the technological advancements and state of economy at that time, it was the cheapest and simplest solution for an immediate problem.

It probably became a commercialized trend when developers started competing with one another to break height records and charging tenants premiums for living in these ‘historic’ monuments. So in irony, even back then, building taller buildings weren’t about housing needs anymore but more for status symbols. Yet with all the glory and technological advancements from the rise of skyscrapers, the eco-social sustainability footprint was doing the exact opposite; worsening.

Do heights of city skylines and skyscrapers define the quality of the city, or does its people and everything living in the city define the city? This trend of building skywards is purely a misconstrued American ideal and is purely unsustainable, yet developing countries still perceive that as the benchmark of modernity. It also aggravates the rate of urban sprawl and urbanization at unprecedented rates displacing and disrupting ecological and social environments. While some government housing boards and developers are in cahoots and mask the profiteering reasons with the pretense of housing ‘needs’, building upwards do not improve city lifestyles one bit and only make it worse.

Building tall buildings require strong foundations and this requires developers to dig deep. In some cases, whole hills are removed to make more ‘sell-able’ leveled land space and this deeply affects the ecology and the people around that area. Not to mention the amount of steel and concrete to build these towering giants and how these also affect the eco-social footprint from their source environments. The amount of foreign laborers imported to cut construction costs also create unsustainable social footprints locally and internationally.

Unsustainable construction methods and materials like these also require huge energy and natural resources to build and maintain these structures, leaving a very deep and ever growing eco-social footprint void. Yet the eco-social impact has never been the actual part of the cost equation.

Trees don’t pay rent or taxes

In the race to build skyscrapers, trees are never given a place because rather than contributing rent or taxes, they take up tax dollars to upkeep and maintain. As the urban sprawl encroaches closer to nature, unsustainable developers will cut down huge forests and sell off the timber for whatever the twigs and bark is worth without considering the immediate and after-effects of this eco-social impact. Although some may claim CSR activities of replanting forests elsewhere, the rate and ratio of depleting forests to new seedlings is completely unsustainable.

Yet for all the skyscraper living, most if not all of its dwellers would somehow fantasize their perfect retirement back on the ground on a large piece of land with trees and space for all their privately desired lifestyle amenities. This begs the question of why take the trees away in the first place?

Skyscraper towns and cities need a strong balance for its eco-social footprint. Housing values should never be the top priority in building skyscraper for housing needs. In most European countries, homes are not for trading but for dwelling, hence speculation on price is never allowed. This also explains why there is rarely any skyscraper buildings in their major suburbs and towns. Yet their urban and suburban dwellings are themed with nature and parks for many generations with well planned and highly sustainable eco-social footprints even for its time.

The Game of Skyscrapers

Most countries would encourage skyscraper residential buildings merely to increase the population density per constituency. As part of a political insurance building agenda, skyscraper residences can easily accommodate larger voting populations for most political leaders to ‘bank-in’ on for votes. This further allows politicians to instantly secure polls for their economic legislatures and tax reforms in their favor. In some countries, politically-opposing constituencies are deliberately left undeveloped only to sway voters to the side of personified progress.

Unplanned or over-developed skyscraper towns create irreversible and unsustainable eco-social footprints that essentially endanger the natural ecology and natural sources of sustenance. Pseudonym towns that claim to be eco-friendly or forested with nature while completely being unsustainably man-made and evicted of wildlife are purely investment scams for quick profits only. The damage done to the ecology from the excavation of sand and subsequent dumping into the seas as landfill is the opposite of progress. It marks the decline and decimation of a nation’s biodiversity and ecology which further impacts other neighboring nation stakeholders as well.

Skyscrapers should only be built when the need and its sustainable eco-social footprint has been fully remediated. While some nations aim to show their economic and technological prowess through skyscrapers, the opportunity costs of these structures could be better used for more immediate and long-term sustainable economic activities instead. Also, skyscrapers should be built without eradicating, modifying or artificially changing the existing ecology coefficient of its building area. This helps preserve the natural eco-social sustainability of the premises and its surrounding and actually proves the real prowess of a nation’s technological advancements.

Dollars in the sky

Unsustainable skyscrapers are in some ways built with the ominous intention of turning it into a magnet for tourism dollars. Skyscrapers that feature 360 degree viewing decks or lavish ‘heavenly’ high pools does not balance the eco-social footprint and economic benefit ratios. As tall as these structures go up, they actually cascade a long dark shadow on their own nation and economy. Extremely high un-occupancy rates bleed on energy resources and funds to upkeep and maintain these structures. Although some modern skyscrapers boast state-of-the-art energy saving and renewable solutions, the occupancy ratio still doesn’t permit any cost savings and or economic benefits.

With rising skyscrapers, economic inflation follows suite and makes the cost of living in those areas un-sustainably high. This drives away occupancy rather than attracting them. We call this the “lighthouse effect” of buildings. These skyscrapers, like lighthouses, shine out a far reaching beacon for other people and tourists to see, gaze and be amaze; but keeps people and locals away from there because of the ‘rocky’ high cost of living and expenses. This explains why the return on investment in skyscrapers is usually negative especially when the eco-social footprint of it is highly unsustainable from the very beginning. Current median travel trends by newer generations actually prefer to live in nostalgic suburbs with affordable and comfortable living standards and expenses per city before hoping over to the next destination.

With the ever improving technology for communication and commuting, working from home or home-offices have de-urbanized most locals and travelers alike. New age travelers now seek out picturesque, nostalgic and natural places on earth compared to boring immovable towering structures in major cities. This is the de-urbanizing effect on people’s lifestyle after having lived in concrete forests for most of their life. Even major global corporations are decentralizing their workforce while acquiring smaller, more efficient and with better eco-social sustainable office structures rather than investing in skyscrapers. It also hedges their risk of property gluts, bubbles and crashes on the sustainability of their business operations.

Even the most basic financial principal of demand and supply doesn’t seem to affect the prices of these skyscraper residential buildings. If skyscrapers can accommodate much more tenants, the price per unit should decrease and not increase. Thus it makes absolutely no economic sense for governments to continue to build high rise residential units for its population if the prices for these units keep increasing with average cost of living. There is no evidence that high-rise living improves lifestyle or living standards but only make things worse. Also, evidence shows that skyscraper and high-rise urban living does not encourage procreation especially due to the limited size of units, poor soundproofing works and close-proximity to nosy neighbors.

Sky fall

In many over urbanized cities, the claustrophobic feeling of enclosed towering concrete jungles have blocked off the sun while some have reflected heat rays onto other structures instead. Even natural breezes are stagnated and no longer flow causing average ground temperatures to rise steadily along with cooling energy costs. Not to mention the echo of sound waves bellowing through the urban streets which resonate against the tall structures around and amplifies it along the way.

In coastal cities with towering skyscrapers, natural rainfall does not reach further inland due to the air buffer created by these tall structures which inadvertently lead to drought and further desolation of ecological systems inland. Even the gutter discharge of rainwater running off the skyscraper has a severe impact on the neighboring buildings and residents. Heavy streams of water cascading from the windshields of the skyscraper’s facade can accumulate into an artificial waterfall with sufficient kinetic energy to cause erosive damage on buildings below.

The rapid growth of tall urban structures also prevent natural snowfall in some cities due to the ambient heat dissipating from these urban jungles. And as these urban cities grow past the suburbs, future generations would have to travel further away from the city to experience snow fall causing an unsustainable annual exodus. Such climate changes have also caused storms to brew stronger leading to stronger typhoons, hurricanes, hail storms and even lightning storms in these skyscraper cities. Damages inflicted from these towering giants will cause debris to scatter wider and further on other buildings and people below, as exaggerated by most skyscraper disaster movies.

Even the demolition of such buildings will cause significant collateral eco-social damage. When skyscraper cities are built too close to one another, there is no room or solution to remove the existing structure without affecting the others. Hence, the lesser risk approach for most developers is to remodel the external facade and reinforce the internal structure to allow them to build taller instead. This adds further burden on the eco-social footprint as most existing building support and ancillary systems, such as waste and sewage systems, aren’t designed to facilitate larger structures and taller buildings.

Conclusion

We envision new urban cities with zero eco-social footprints that encourages sustainable living and lifestyle for its inhabitants and the natural environment. Skyscrapers and tall residential buildings are relics of the past era and are completely unsustainable and unessential if proper urban planning and sustainability standards are upheld. Furthermore, an oversupply of housing is an utter waste of land, resources and unaccounted ecological damage, since it hardly reduces the price for housing for different social economic needs.

We provide highly sustainable building materials and technological products to help make new and existing buildings reduce their eco-social footprint. We continue to strive to encourage and develop new technology and buildings that would champion our cause for zero eco-social footprints while creating safe, and sustainable environments and lifestyles for its stakeholders.

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