This has it the wrong way around. The price of infrastructure means that dense places cost less to upkeep than sparse places. The reason that cities cost more than the suburbs is 1) that there's more demand for cities, and 2) in the US, taxes paid by city-dwellers subsidize the expensive suburban infrastructure.

No, all in construction costs for a typical 40 story high rise divided by number of saleable square feet equate to much higher cost per square feet than the average suburban housing development. I’ve seen very credible figures that indicates it’s at least a 2x multiple even for a barebones apartment building with no amenities at all

And that’s before the expensive taxes, permits, etc., that cities charge on top for downtown or high rise construction, which as you say partially subsidizes suburbia. So in reality it’s more around triple the cost per square foot in a North American city.

The only reason apartments bigger than a shoebox are affordable at all is because land acquisition costs when divided by hundreds of units is obviously far lower than for even the narrowest cookie cutter tract.

A 40-story high rise isn't the density we're referring to here, in a discussion of European-style urban living. Obviously one can astronomically inflate the price of any building by stretching it preposterously upwards, thereby requiring exotic materials and building techniques to support its own weight and the increasing winds and seismic concerns. But "dense urban living" doesn't mean "skyscrapers", it can mean four-to-six-story mixed-use buildings, which are both short enough to build without difficulty or undue expense and dense enough to realize efficient infrastructure costs. To be sure, skyscrapers are a dead end that we should be building less of.

In that case land acquisition costs make it too pricy since attractive downtown plots in a big city like Toronto are easily hundreds of millions per acre. Because they are zoned for 40+ story buildings.

And why would any land owner seek to zone for less than the maximal allowance?

If you mean forced downgrading of the zoning or replacing existing suburbia with mid density developments, or subsidizing mid density as opposed to suburbia, that’s an entirely political conversation since the roadblock is zoning laws and the legislature.

Earlier you were claiming that those 40+ story buildings are too expensive to build. If that's true the problem of getting people to build mid density there will solve itself. Developers that overpaid for those plots will lose out, but whatever they paid initially is a sunk cost; building something you can get paid rent for beats building nothing.

And yeah, if there are sandwich shops or whatever whose business is only viable at skyscraper-level density and not at 4-6 story density then those will go to the wall. But I doubt that's a big segment. Mid density means proportionately more floor space at street level, which should be friendlier to businesses.

We may see a more pronounced downturn in city centers, and we might see a drop in density below skyscraper level (though personally I'm skeptical of even that much). But we won't see a hollowing out of the cities; at the very least, Vienna-like density still makes sense.

You were not carefully reading. Land costs are different from construction costs.

EDIT: And in any case there is no real benefit for the city council to stop upzoning at mid-rises only. If they’re expending the political capital to upzone they have every reason to go all the way.

Land costs are a sunk cost as I said. If it's too expensive to build skyscrapers then it will make sense to build midrise. If it's not too expensive to build skyscrapers then it will make sense to build skyscrapers. There's no scenario where "it's upzoned so we'd better leave it empty instead of building midrise" makes any kind of sense.

Since when are land costs 'sunk costs'? Do you imagine land owners can't sell their land to a higher bidder? I'm talking about Canada and the U.S. here, not about countries which prohibits private land sales without prior government approval.

If you paid high pre-recession prices for land whose value has now dropped, that money is sunk; refusing to build a moderate-price building (appropriate to the land's current value) on the land because the land is "too expensive" (in terms of the price you originally paid) is cutting your nose off to spite your face.

Huh? Land value has at least doubled everywhere I know of in the U.S and Canada since 2009.

In which municipality has land value declined since 2009?

And even if so, why does that mean they are forced to build anything? They can just keep it vacant and pay a much lower property tax, some folks just don't want to go through hassles even if it's somewhat less efficient.

If land value hasn't declined then what on earth would be the logic of leaving it vacant? If you're not doing anything with it then just sell it. I don't even get what you're arguing at this point.

Some people want to own bare land? You were the one who brought up the issue of vacancy.

> In that case land acquisition costs make it too pricy since attractive downtown plots in a big city like Toronto are easily hundreds of millions per acre. Because they are zoned for 40+ story buildings. And why would any land owner seek to zone for less than the maximal allowance?

> If you mean forced downgrading of the zoning or replacing existing suburbia with mid density developments, or subsidizing mid density as opposed to suburbia, that’s an entirely political conversation since the roadblock is zoning laws and the legislature.

You appeared to be claiming that land will be left vacant in the absence of political changes (with the frankly bizarre suggestion that land needs to be downzoned to encouraged more building). If that wasn't what you were claiming then what were you claiming?

You need to understand the fact that many are willing to own bare land and put it to its less than theoretically optimal usage. In fact they will fight against attempts to develop it.

It's called land banking if you haven't heard of it before.

I'm not sure how any of your comment follows.