Why India Doesn’t Build Skyscrapers

travel to almost any bustling City in Asia and you'll notice that many of them have the same thing in common they build big massive skyscrapers Tower over City centers largely a product of economic growth and the demand for space in congested areas then there's India the country's home some of the most highly populated cities in the world and has the second highest GDP on the continent after China but its buildings don't really reflect these numbers it has some skyscrapers but they're mostly in Mumbai there aren't very many of them and they're shorter on average as compared to neighboring Asian cities Mumbai sits on a peninsula where land is both scarce and expensive normally such constraints Force developers to build upwards think New York or Hong Kong and yet this city is still far behind the skyscraper game so if India's population and wealth are so high why does it build so low well it all has to do with a little known rule holding the country back from going big and managing density this is how politics infrastructure and money are stunting India's Skyline to many of us skyscrapers are symbols of things like wealth power and growth and they tend to rise in places where there's high demand for space China has constructed nearly 1 100 skyscrapers over 200 meters tall it's followed by South Korea with 86 Malaysia with 61 and Indonesia with 48. but India has just 24 and only a couple of buildings even close to 300 meters under construction that's a very unusual difference considering its population of 1.4 billion people and its overall wealth instead of going tall the country tends to build outwards and historically there are a few reasons for that one is infrastructure with such a large population India experiences frequent power outages especially during the hotter months when demand for electricity is high and many of its cities often grapple with access to clean water now the availability of Power and Water are important for skyscrapers high rises consume more than low-rise buildings so it's essential that the surrounding infrastructure can support them that's part of the explanation but really there's an even bigger culprit behind the country's short Skyline a building code mandated by the government that's been in place for decades it's known as the floor space index or floor area ratio excitingly abbreviated to FSI the FSI is the ratio between the total amount of floor space a developer can construct to the plot of land that floor space is being built on it determines the total area that's allowed to be built on a site Suresh Patel a civil engineer explains what this means with a little bit of maths so if you have a plot of one hectare and an FSI of one let us say then you can build one hectare of floor space which would be if your footprint is half a hectare you can build ground in one upper half a hectare on the ground floor half a hectare on the first floor that makes one hectare which is the plot area multiplied by the FSI the lower the FSI number the lower a building's volume and floor space can be according to Urban developers this tool should be used in a way that doesn't create scarcity of land it can help to reduce land costs per units in areas where the price of land is expensive or limited now several cities have these building codes for height restrictions in place but across India they are stricter than most countries with similar profiles take a look at Mumbai in 1991 in an attempt to limit new construction and keep migrants out Mumbai introduced an FSI of just 1.3 to give you a bit of context on just how low that number is in New York Manhattan has an average FSI of 15 and India's nearby Asian cities are just as high or even higher Hong Kong's FSI is up to 12 Tokyo's is 20 and Singapore's is a staggering 25. horizontal growth in Mumbai is limited due to its geographical location on an island but the low FSI limits it even further it wasn't until 2022 that Mumbai loosened restrictions but only slightly now the FSI ranges between 2.5 and 5 depending on the exact location other cities across India have similar or even lower numbers the countryside's health and safety considerations for these restrictions it's also an attempt to reduce the number of people living in one area and control the scale of development but according to urban planners a stricter FSI doesn't really solve those issues the biggest misconception about density in planning is higher FSI equals higher population density which is not true you can have very tall buildings with one you know nice Floor One Flat apartment per floor and only so many people living and you will have areas like dharami which are completely low-lying slums with the population density is super high the outcome of these Notions has a big impact on the country and it goes far beyond the lack of some impressive skyscrapers Mumbai the one biggest consequence is affordability you don't add floor space where people want to live then the limited floor space becomes super expensive right with so many job opportunities in places like Mumbai and Bangalore people have been flocking to these City centers but with lower fsis and higher populations developers can't keep up you don't accommodate people in more compact Footprints closer to the city center but people want to be in cities work in cities you will spread outwards right so you will spread uh horizontally you will have to construct more roads leading out which means more emissions which means more people coming in urban planners say increasing FSI would be a good first step to relieving overcrowding and lowering housing prices but it would also have to be accompanied by investments in mass transportation roads and other vital infrastructure networks but while looser FSI restrictions and more skyscrapers could help address some of India's Urban challenges the general population might not be on board with the idea just yet people do have a negative to connotation of skyscrapers and density because the 102 buildings that come up which are higher density like I said they come up in an area with core infrastructure no green spaces though it's only a small increase the recent change in mumbai's FSI could indicate a taller future for the city's Skyline and better managed population density development has increased rapidly in just the last few years in 2022 alone 31 skyscrapers are set to be completed in India 27 of them are going to be in Mumbai reaching Heights of around 200 meters and mostly offering residential space India's population growth especially in its major cities isn't slowing down anytime soon and real estate costs will continue to rise as space dwindles but if the country builds further into the sky and invests More in its infrastructure than its Urban housing crisis could start to ease and Mumbai could find itself with a brand new Skyline this video was made possible by bluebeam you can learn more about that at the link below and as always if you enjoyed this video and you want to get more from the definitive video channel for construction make sure you're subscribed to the b1m

Channel: The B1M

Views: 1,276,212

Keywords: B1M, architecture, engineering, The B1M, Fred Mills, building, india, mumbai, skyscraper, fsi, floor space index, china, hong kong, singapore, new york city, floor area ratio, slums, new delhi, gdp, economy, asia, south korea, high population, density, supertall, housing crisis, affordability, city, population, why europe doesn't build skyscrapers

Id: 5xx_0vbZC-U

Length: 8min 26sec (506 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 09 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/namedGIO]

The B1M is top tier content

[u/Uncledrew401]

I hate skyscrapers, and i thank AdamSomething for that.