Stellarfun, you previously said the question was amount of available land. It seems you are now saying that housing construction is only done by the government or non-profits in Copenhagen, which accounts for the quality of architecture. Is that correct?
The notion that only the government can "build nice things" is, of course, far-fetched. Look at what the government or, more recently, non-profits that build housing projects / low-income housing here produce. Our home-grown example of the Back Bay, which is a perpetual foil for the Seaport's folly, was a private development. I am not the first to say that, had the city zoned for/sold smaller lots in the Seaport the people purchasing those lots would be building very different - and probably better -structures today.
As for why Copenhagen's large-scale architecture is better than what we're getting in the Seaport, there are clearly other, societal/cultural and political, factors at work. Primarily, I would assume that Danish consumers are simply more picky about architectural quality, and that there are potentially more demanding standards for building designs.
On the former, we're a bit screwed until people take architecture more seriously as a factor impacting decision to buy/rent in a given building. That can change gradually or quickly, but it's hard to force it. On the latter, I think having quality architectural design be a criterion for permitting in the Seaport would have helped. Again, smaller plots would have been more of a silver bullet, but if we take as given the massive, block-length plots, a design approvals board with strict standards would have been a good thing. The fact is that this land is going to get developed sooner or later - it's too lucrative not to be - and having high architectural standards would not have changed that.
The notion that only the government can "build nice things" is, of course, far-fetched. Look at what the government or, more recently, non-profits that build housing projects / low-income housing here produce. Our home-grown example of the Back Bay, which is a perpetual foil for the Seaport's folly, was a private development. I am not the first to say that, had the city zoned for/sold smaller lots in the Seaport the people purchasing those lots would be building very different - and probably better -structures today.
As for why Copenhagen's large-scale architecture is better than what we're getting in the Seaport, there are clearly other, societal/cultural and political, factors at work. Primarily, I would assume that Danish consumers are simply more picky about architectural quality, and that there are potentially more demanding standards for building designs.
On the former, we're a bit screwed until people take architecture more seriously as a factor impacting decision to buy/rent in a given building. That can change gradually or quickly, but it's hard to force it. On the latter, I think having quality architectural design be a criterion for permitting in the Seaport would have helped. Again, smaller plots would have been more of a silver bullet, but if we take as given the massive, block-length plots, a design approvals board with strict standards would have been a good thing. The fact is that this land is going to get developed sooner or later - it's too lucrative not to be - and having high architectural standards would not have changed that.
