I was in Detroit about two years ago, and I swear, there was an actual abandoned skyscraper right across from the bus terminal.
Most American skyscrapers are completely empty beyond the first 2 floors since few companies can even afford the rent on them. They’re all for show.
“What do you mean?! It’s such beautiful architecture and a good use of resources!” 🤡
Empty skyscraper in country with world's largest GDP: *crickets*
Ryugyong Hotel unfinished in a country embargoed to hell and back: COMMUNISM IS EVIL
You're kidding? What about places like LA, they're mostly skyscrapers, no?
No, empty skyscrapers are pretty much the norm. You might get one rented out floor here and there, but it’s mostly all fake. For example, even the famous Empire State Building in New York was almost completely deserted until it accidentally got famous with the release of King Kong. Most other skyscrapers aren’t that lucky.
But what if I told you in LA and many other Southwestern cities, there are entire fake buildings in the middle of the city, built around oil pump jacks because they are considered unsightly. With no care about the space their take up, the environmental damage they do, or the use of the land besides oil.
fake empire buildings in the middle of the city, built around oil pump jacks
This I have heard of, and it makes at least some sense. But the empty skyscrapers? How do their owners pay for the land if not for rent?
The city is forced to shoulder the cost, which comes from taxes of course. So large developers promise the world to the city and sell them the idea of how massively beneficial said skyscraper will be with business taxes, commuters which boost the economy, increased housing needed for workers, and so on.
Very few of these promises ever come true, and many skyscrapers are decades old at this point as local and state governments keep making the same “mistake” over and over again.
This is on purpose of course, as those land developers pay off officials, politicians, and land owners in order to receive contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars, with little regard to the long term repercussions of what they are doing.
The city is forced to shoulder the cost
I am mildly confused about this part. So the city authorities say "Pay for the land", and the developer can just go "Nah"? No repercussions? Nothing?
Basically.
The land is owned by the city, and developers bribe officials into paying their companies massive contracts to build the buildings on that city owned land, and once they’re done they quickly hightail it out of there with the hundreds of millions they’ve just swindled off of the city. Then the burden of the building falls back on the city, as it’s technically not the building companies fault that the building became useless and has no buyers.
Absolutely fascinating. It does sound like how housing building developers work in Russia, but apparently on a grander scale
Fun fact: this is how one of the biggest hushed scandal in the recent history of Poland went, and it was just one building, which wasn't even build. "Afera Srebrna". PiS planned to build a small-ish skyscraper in Warsaw using some set-up with foundations so it was not officially connected to the party and they used their people in state-owned companies to already promise renting space in this building for long years ahead, which would basically secure party funding for 20-30 next years.
One, not big building in good localisation.
Fortunately, it was blocked by the liberal president of city, Trzaskowski, who refused to allow the building to be built because it was too tall for that place urbanist plan. That's why PiS absolutely hates him now.
Again, this is just one building, which sheds some light on how unbelievable levels of corruption are in Poland and according to this thread, in America it's much, much higher.
The absolute scale of corruption in the US, and the sheer shamelessness of said corruption, are pretty unbelievable. We're sort of good at projecting a facade of invincibility, but inside, this place is collapsing by the day.
It would be pretty funny if there was some kind of scifi movie which shows north america from space and it's all dirty and polluted, and it turns to the other hemisphere and everything's green.
Let me finish those libs' sentence: "Capitalism breeds innovation in new ways to exploit the proletariat and, being the bootlickers we are, we're hoping that saying this is going to lead to us not being exploited as much."
American cityscapes provide the perfect playground for kids to run around, explore the buildings, play catch, hide-and-seek, and other fun games of life and death
You're taking away my freedom to experience urban blight, this is basically genocide
