Ep 30: Skyscrapers with Gabriel Ahlfeldt

Skyscrapers! We can’t help but find them fascinating. Some cities are full of skyscrapers, and others have none. Developers built a 70-story tower on that parcel, but the proposed building just down the street is only 30 stories. How do developers decide where to build skyscrapers and how tall they should be? And are they really a profitable investment, or simply a monument to individual power and ego? Gabriel Ahlfeldt joins us from the London School of Economics to talk about his research on skyscrapers, a comprehensive analysis that catalogs nearly every 150-meter-plus building in the world. We discuss how skyscrapers influence the built form of cities, far beyond their typical boundaries within the central business district, and what the data can tell us about their profitability, their appeal to residents and workers, and the role that planners play in shaping where they’re found and how tall they go. Skyscrapers!

Show notes:

• Ahlfeldt, G. M., & Barr, J. (2022). The economics of skyscrapers: A synthesis. Journal of Urban Economics, 129, 103419.
• Ahlfeldt, G. M., Redding, S. J., Sturm, D. M., & Wolf, N. (2015). The economics of density: Evidence from the Berlin Wall. Econometrica, 83(6), 2127-2189.
• Cheshire, P. C., & Dericks, G. H. (2020). ‘Trophy Architects’ and Design as Rent‐seeking: Quantifying Deadweight Losses in a Tightly Regulated Office Market. Economica, 87(348), 1078-1104.
• Ahlfeldt, G. M., & McMillen, D. P. (2018). Tall buildings and land values: Height and construction cost elasticities in Chicago, 1870–2010. Review of Economics and Statistics, 100(5), 861-875.
• Barr, J. (2013). Skyscrapers and skylines: New York and Chicago, 1885–2007. Journal of Regional Science, 53(3), 369-391.