The Nietzschean Origins of Skyscrapers

[Reidy]

An article that makes for interesting reading in connection with The Fountainhead and Rand's theories about art. Sullivan was her model for Henry Cameron.

The author's observation that highrise is on the decline in the US but going strong in China raises a question: has technology decentralized work so that such buildings are obsolete? If so, you'd expect freer markets to catch on sooner. On the other hand, maybe politics brought this on by making big cities more expensive, dilapidated and dangerous.

[Grames]

I think it is economics and politics, not technology.  COVID lockdowns brought about much corporate experimentation with remote and work from home arrangements but there is now a deliberate movement away from those experiments.  In America the big cities with the most and tallest skyscrapers are the most locked in the grip of socialist politics at the local and state levels which discourages further investment beyond a certain point for a variety of reasons including the financial and tax aspects but now also crime policy and other social issues.  In China building things is one of the few CCP-approved things that can be done with a pile of money.  China has also been undergoing a mass movement of its population from the countryside to cities creating a legitimate need for large buildings.

Arabian skyscrapers are speculative investments in real estate, a way to dispose of ("invest") a pile of money.  Time will tell if the buildings and new cities will endure.