December 2016

fueled by new theories in urban and community planning and supported by the concern over (then) rocketing costs of gasoline, affected residential plan- ning and will for the foreseeable future. For the past fifty years, the world’s tallest buildings were designed to provide office space. Buildings like the Empire State Building, Woolworth Building and World Trade Center buildings housed corporate offices for the world’s biggest companies. However, sci-fi writers and futurists predicted super high-rise living since the 1960s and 70s. In 1977, writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra imagined 200 story high- rise apartment buildings in their week- ly science-fiction anthology 2000 AD. They were but two of the first dream- ers that laid the figurative foundation of the tallest residential building in the world, the 89 floor 432 Park Avenue building which opened in 2015. According to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (the “CTBUH”), in the early 2000s, the use of high-rise buildings shifted from corpo- rate offices toward residential use. This trend was halted for a short time due to the 9/11 attacks and purchasers’ concerns with living in towering sky- scrapers. But historically, people want a view and new construction plans for high-rise living has rocketed forward. The CTBUH database now lists that more than 100 residential skyscrapers are under construction in the world. In New Jersey, nowhere has seen bigger changes than Hoboken and Jersey City. Both skylines have been forever altered and now feature mul- tiple story condos and apartment

CONT I NU E S ON PAGE 32

31

D E C E M B E R , 2 0 1 6