I think too often, though, we are saddled with the ugly empty/parking lots. Despite all the talk about a "real estate boom" and all the urban planners getting up in arms about how best to "manage the boom" so were aren't "left with a bunch of impersonal high rises that do not reflect the character of Philadelphia" (paraphrsing here but this is generally the argument made), we have so far seen only one - ONE - major residential high rise so far from the "real estate boom". That would be the St. James. No other residential high-rise (which I'll define as a building of over 15 floors) is even under construction at this stage. There are several that are planned but tied up in litigation foar various reasons and could very well likely not ever see the light of day. There's also the Symphony House which is supposed to start construction but hasn't yet.

So basically we are at a VERY embryonic stage of the boom and already the NIMBYs of this city are all up in arms about how we would be "mortgaging our future" by allowing "souless high rises" to be built.

I say these proposals need to get a fair hearing before they are discarded. The overreaction to the New Market proposal (with one guy going so far as to propose spending 100K of his own personal money to fight it) is really overreacting and premature. For all they know, they might like the project. However, they are not even giving the project a chance.

NYC, Chicago, and other cities are getting far mroe high-rises residential buildings than Philadelphia is or ever will get. The realtively tiny "boom" we are seeing, however, is arousing so much resistance and anger. Why? As I said, so far only ONE residential high rise has been built and no others are currently under construction. To hear these NIMBYs talk you'd think we have a building boom mroe out of control than Shanghai and that we are being suffocated by tall high rises!!!