Skynomics Blog is about the economic causes and consequences of tall buildings around the world. The blog discusses what drives the construction and heights of skyscrapers, and how they impact cities and the people who work, live and play in them.
Jason M. Barr February 27, 2024
[Note: Starting Monday, March 4, 2024, Gerard Koeppel and I will be co-teaching a six-week online course on t… Read More
Jason M. Barr February 21, 2024
[Note: Starting on Monday, March 4, 2024, Gerard Koeppel and I will be co-teaching a six-week online course o… Read More
Troy Tassier and Jason M. Barr November 27, 2023
Prominent in the list of dangerous and aggressive nuisances are the tenement houses of the city&he&hell…Read More
Troy Tassier and Jason M. Barr November 6, 2023
Those sickened must be cured or die off, & being cheifly [sic] of the very scum of the city, th… Read More
Jason M. Barr September 13, 2022
New York is a resilient city. In 1975, it was left for dead when President Gerald Ford failed to help stave off its Fiscal Cri… Read More
Jason M. Barr August 31, 2022
New York City suffers from a housing affordability crisis.
The fundamental problem is that there are too few homes to keep up with the demand… Read More
Jason M. Barr June 13, 2022
New York’s resurgence in the 21st century has led to a housing affordability crisis. More than half of the city’s rente… Read More
Jason M. Barr March 28, 2022
Today, metropolises like New York, Vancouver, and London, get a lot of flak for constructing ultra-luxury high-rise condos for inte… Read More
Jason M. Barr February 21, 2022
Surely, in the light of history, it is more intelligent to hope rather than to fear, to try rather than not to try… Read More
Jason M. Barr (@JasonBarrRU) December 13, 2021
Two facts in New York seem inviolable. Housing prices always rise, and wherever you look, a shiny, ne… Read More
Jason M. Barr (@JasonBarrRU) November 1, 2021
If you ask someone familiar with New York City real estate about the birth of modern zoning, they’ll point to 196… Read More
Jason M. Barr (@JasonBarrRU) and Sean Franklin September 27, 2021
The 1970s was New York’s darkest decade. The government nearly went bankrupt. A recessi… Read More
Jason M. Barr (@JasonBarrRU) August 9, 2021
Preface
Today, many cities worldwide regulate urban density by limiting the floor area ratio (FAR)—the amount of allowable… Read More
Jason M. Barr (@JasonBarrRU) May 11, 2021
Author’s note: This post is Part I of a four-part series on the birth and growth of modern zoning, focusi… Read More
Jason M. Barr December 23, 2020
The Space Race
At the end of the Roaring Twenties, New York City witnessed a three-way race for the world’s tallest building. F… Read More
Jason M. Barr November 19, 2020
In the 21st century, Planet Earth has gone on a skyscraper building spree. Since 1995, for example, the number of skyscra… Read More
Jason M. Barr October 22, 2020
Pleasure or Pain?
One of the biggest complaints about new construction is that it is harmful to the quality of urban life. For e… Read More
Jason M. Barr and Troy Tassier May 19, 2020
Pandemic 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic rages on with no end in sight. How long it will take to return to normal, a… Read More
Jason M. Barr and Troy Tassier written on April 3, 2020, posted on April 20.
Note: A shorter version of this post was written for Scientific American, wh… Read More
Jason M. Barr March 17, 2020
Your New Job
Imagine the governor of your state announces that she is going to create a brand-new city out of whole cloth. The stat… Read More
Jason M. Barr November 18, 2019
Across U.S. cities, perhaps nothing is more controversial than the issue of gentrification—the process of weal… Read More
Jason M. Barr September 24, 2019
Note this is Part II of an on-going series on the evolution of skyscraper technology. Part I can be read here.
The Chicken or the Egg?
What came… Read More
Jason M. Barr August 6, 2019
Note: This two-part series is adapted from chapters seven and eight of my book, Building the Skyline: The Birth and Gr… Read More
Jason M. Barr July 29, 2019
Note: This two-part series is adapted from chapters seven and eight of my book, Building the Skyline: The Birth a… Read More
Jason M. Barr July 16, 2019
Note this is Part I of what will be an on-going series on the evolution of skyscraper technology.
The Birth of Height
In 1900, the architect Cass Gil… Read More
Jason M. Barr July 1, 2019
Ingrid Gould Ellen is the Paulette Goddard Professor of Urban Policy and Planning at New York University, and a Faculty Director at the NYU Furma… Read More
Jason M. Barr June 17, 2019
Ingrid Gould Ellen is the Paulette Goddard Professor of Urban Policy and Planning at New York University, and a Faculty Director at… Read More
Jason M. Barr June 4, 2019
Note this is Part IV of a series on the economics of skyscrapers. Part I can be read here, Part II here, and Part III here.
Rise of the Sky… Read More
Jason M. Barr May 16, 2019
Congestion Pricing for Manhattan
This past April, New York State passed a law allowing congestion pricing in Manhat… Read More
Jason M. Barr April 30, 2019
[Note that this is the third part of a three-part series on New York City’s first comprehensive land use regulations, enacted in 1… Read More
Jason M. Barr April 10, 2019
[This is part two of a four-part series on New York’s first zoning regulations, enacted in 1916. Part I focuses on the histor… Read More
Jason M. Barr March 27, 2019
[Note this the first part of a three-part series on New York’s first comprehensive land use regulations, enacted in 1916. Par… Read More
Jason M. Barr March 13, 2019
Almost none of the land use regulations that cities have ardently adopted for over a century have been justified… Read More
Jason M. Barr February 5, 2019
Today, just over half of the world’s population lives in cities. By the middle of the 21st century this figure will likely… Read More
Jason M. Barr January 28, 2019
Note this is Part III of a three-part series on the economics of skyscrapers. Part I can be read here and Part II can be read here.
Whe… Read More
Jason M. Barr January 3, 2019
Note this is Part II of three-part series on the economics of skyscrapers. Part I can be read here.
When we think of the world’s tallest… Read More
Jason M. Barr December 17, 2018
Clark and Kingston
In 1930, W. C. Clark and J. L. Kingston (CK), an economist and architect, respectively, published a book call… Read More
Jason M. Barr November 26, 2018
You are a barbarian….Don’t sound so incredulous, captain. We all are. A killer first, a builder second. A hunter, a warri… Read More
Jason M. Barr November 7, 2018
In the 1969 film, Midnight Cowboy, the eager young Texan, Joe Buck (played by John Voight) abandons his hometown and makes his way to t… Read More
Jason M. Barr October 19, 2018
A Brief History of Homo Sapiens
If we look back over the long sweep of Earth history, Homo sapiens has succeeded not only because it can adap… Read More
Jason M. Barr October 2, 2018
For millennia, after the birth of cities nearly 6,000 years ago, people world over lived in constant fear of the conflagration—the… Read More
by Jason M. Barr September 12, 2018
[Author’s Note: This is Part II of a two-part Q&A Interview with Professor Edward Glaeser. Part I can be read here.]
Edward G… Read More
by Jason M. Barr September 5, 2018
[Author’s Note: This is Part I of a two-part Q&A interview with Professor Edward Glaeser.]
Edward Glaeser is the Fred and Elea… Read More
Jason M. Barr August 23, 2018
[Author’s note: This is the second of at least two blog posts about Jane Jacobs and her book, The Death and Life Great American Cities… Read More
Jason M. Barr August 9, 2018
[Author’s note: This is the first of at least two blog posts on Jane Jacobs and her book, The Death and Life of Great America… Read More
Jason M. Barr July 25, 2018
From my eighth-floor office in Newark, New Jersey, I have a view of the Manhattan skyline. On a clear day, I can see One World Trade Cente… Read More
Jason M. Barr July 10, 2018
Author’s note: The paperback of Building the Skyline: The Birth and Growth of Manhattan’s Skyscrapers was recently… Read More
Jason M. Barr June 18, 2018
Have you heard the old joke about gravity—it’s not just a good idea, it’s the law! Ignore the law—say by jumping off a cliff i… Read More
Jason M. Barr May 31, 2018
A growing body of research demonstrates that across the United States there is significant variation in household greenhouse gas emissions… Read More
Jason M. Barr May 10, 2018
Critics of Manhattan’s new supertall superslim buildings have a laundry list of complaints. One particular trope is that they are ugly and… Read More
Jason M. Barr April 10, 2018
Imagine it’s the dead of winter and you’ve just come home from work. Your house is chilly and so you move to the thermostat to cran… Read More
Jason M. Barr March 26, 2018
First, answer this survey question:
On a scale of 0 to 10, please rate your satisfaction with life in general, where 0 means comple… Read More
Jason M. Barr March 8, 2018
Imagine that one day, walking through a crowded business district, you discover that you have a new power: you can see directly insi… Read More
Jason M. Barr February 20, 2018
On a recent Saturday, my wife and I stopped into a burger joint on the Upper West Side of Manhattan; nothing fancy, but not a dive either. T… Read More
Jason M. Barr January 31, 2018
As the income of Planet Earth continues to rise, the construction of tall buildings proceeds apace. Many cities around the… Read More
Jason M. Barr January 15, 2018
In the last decade, New York has seen the emergence of a new skyscraper type—supertall, superslim, ultra-luxury residential… Read More
Jason M. Barr January 2, 2018
The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) recently issued its 2017 Year in Review for skyscraper construction around the world. As in… Read More
Jason M. Barr December 17, 2017
One day soon man is going to be able to harness incredible energies, maybe even the atom. Energies that could ultimately hurl us… Read More
Jason M. Barr December 10, 2017
While skyscrapers are primarily built for their occupants, they, perforce, impose themselves on the urban fabric. We can, for example… Read More
By Jason M. Barr November 26, 2017
The Manhattan skyline was created by developers seeking their fortunes. Skyscraper heights, frequencies, types, and locations are b… Read More
By Jason M. Barr November 19, 2017
In the last decade, New York has seen a resurgence of skyscrapers. In particular, has been the rise of the supers… Read More
By Jason M. Barr October 20, 2017
In the year 1848, a stroll down lower Broadway in Manhattan would have revealed a decidedly low-rise town. The reason was simple: th… Read More
By Jason M. Barr October 7, 2017
What was the world’s first skyscraper? If you do have an answer, you would be, most assuredly, wrong (sorry). Any s… Read More