Derick Liu

It’s true that many of the new buildings are beautiful in their slender shape and form. to be honest, I often walk through the streets like a tourist, just staring up at the beauty of the buildings. However, I enjoy looking at the sky even more. Sure, the buildings seem beautiful and save space for a growing population, but what of the sky? Right now, it isn’t a big deal if a few more skyscrapers pop up here and there, but if we continue to build the streets would become shadowed. There are already a great deal of streets that only get moments of sunlight during midday, what would happen if we continued erecting steel curtains on our streets? The only places we would be able to go to enjoy sunlight would be the park, and if we are lucky, we might have a large windowed office.

Individually, these slender beings are beautiful, but if we construct them too close together, then they can become titans which block out our light. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great the New Yrk is advancing and become more modern in terms of architecture. As Kanye West put it, “I really do believe that the world can be saved through design, and everything needs to actually be ‘architected,'” and I agree completely. However, that doesn’t mean everything has to be gigantic, as if the city is over compensating for something. I worry about what kind of negative effects, on people, will pop up should the city become a forest of skyscrapers. A lack of natural light, and the envy of those who work on higher levels are just two ways that people can be negatively influenced – humans are fragile beings after all. What if these beautiful constructs shift from beings that inspire awe to beings that inspire fear and resentment? Of course, I’m jumping the gun, but it’s all very possible if you take into consideration, the studies done regarding environmental influences on the human emotional and mental state.
And I’m not even going to touch upon how the affordability of such buildings would have on a society suffering from a huge economic gap.

Also, in my honest opinion, rather than building vertically, we should build horizontally. New York has so much land as a state, but it isn’t being taken advantage of to it’s fullest potential. If we were to develop a faster and more efficient train system, the distance for a viable commute would be greatly expanded for those who live outside the city. If we were to construct a system similar to the bullet train, then even more land would become accessible and making country land seem more attractive. Of course, for this to be plausible there would have to be a scheme to create a demand for the train and the land for buyers and investors.