Windows don't make you safe in a high rise. Especially ones in a donut hole in a structure - no way to escape through those!!

I dunno man, I think people can strawman every which way on housing its kind of tiring.

"We should build windowless homes so poor people can afford them"

"You can't put poor people in homes you dont want yourself"

"Your desire to not build windowless homes is because you dont want to live next to poor people"

"I think we should build more housing"

"You just want rich people to have more homes"

on and on

FDNY can ladder rescue up to about the 10th floor. They've rope rescued someone as high as the 20th floor recently. https://nypost.com/2022/11/05/fdny-battling-high-rise-blaze-...

So windows are good, actually.

But that's a strawman when you can literally cut a hole down a skyscraper and be legal. There's literally no way for FDNY to get a ladder into that hole to rescue someone.

To throw out more strawmen...

"I want marble countertops, everyone should have marble countertops"

"I want a curbless shower, everyone should have curbless showers"

At some point, required amenities and features are preventing people from being housed and causing way more people to literally die because they're not housed vs. the alternative of shitty but safe housing. I'd argue that windows in a high-rise with sprinklers is one of those features.

Having fewer or no windows in a modern hi-rise apartment is probably significantly safer than the basement of a 19th century brownstone. Heck, it's probably safer than the brownstone in general.

Not every regulation is about safety. And not every safety regulation achieves additional safety in practice