NYC apartments

Having of course seen the terribly sad news about the recent fire in NY which has so far claimed 17 lives, I was prompted again to wonder why apartments there have no balconies. Many of those buildings are not old enough to have been built before balconies were the norm, so I'm hoping someone can explain the reasoning for such 'inhumane' habitations. It's incredibly unhealthy - mentally and physically - for people to live within four walls around the clock, and there doesn't seem to be any good reason for excluding private outdoor spaces (ie, balconies). We have balcony-less tower buildings in this country too, but they're very rare, and were built many many decades ago. Pretty much everything built since about 1980 has balconies - and even the vast majority of apartments constructed in the 1960's and 70's have them. Just to give an example of our inner city tower blocks - as you can see, every one of them has a balcony:



I'm wondering if far fewer would have died, had they been able to escape the toxic smoke which killed them.

 

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Imagine paying 4-5k a month to essentially live in a shoebox and then claim the rest of America is ass-backwards.

 

Wasn't there an issue with the fire alarms there? Either them not having batteries or people simply not even listening to them? Something like that?

 

The fire itself was contained and technically non-lethal. It was the smoke which did all the damage. People couldn't escape it, when it was pouring into their apartments through door cracks etc. Had they had balconies, they could have shut themselves outside and been safe - since the fire itself wasn't a risk.

 

Old alarms that frequently malfunctioned and were pretty much ignored.
Neglect in inner city. What else is new?

 

What country are you in?

 

That's another question for the ages .. why anyone would ever want to live in a shoebox. Even in the absence of lockdowns etc, it smells like death. The 'lifestyle' you need to support to remain in such a place, is manufactured. Worse still, it must be purchased like any other soulless commodity. You cannot step outside your door without buying or selling something. You cannot get through a day without buying or selling something. You cannot experience anything unless you've paid to experience it.

 

Was this 'public housing', paid for by taxpayers? Is the city accountable?

 

I grew up in inner city shoebox thinking those who lived in provinces were backwards.
Now I live in an unincorporated area with quiet neighbors and will never go back to the big city.

 

Any theories yet on why balconies aren't provided?

Public housing towers in many countries have balconies, so it can't be a budget thing.

 

Old style fire escapes were causing safety/crime issues because people were using it as a way in and out.

This fire was so bad because the occupants fled the apartment leaving the door open. So smoke rapidly accumulated.

 

So this is some kind of 'welfare-provided' public housing? I haven't heard anyone discuss this yet....

If it's some kind of welfare thing, I can just imagine the tens of millions that are going to be shelled-out during the next months to people who paid little or nothing to live in these rat traps to begin with....

 

I just googled Manhattan and there are a ton of buildings with no balconies. Tons. Don’t know why that is.

 

Are they 'welfare-provided' public housing buildings?

 

Not seeing how fire escapes impact the decision not to provide balconies? Wouldn't it be even MORE important to build balconies in the absence of those fire escapes?

Meantime yeah, the smoke was the killer. A disaster that wouldn't have happened if there were balconies.

 

So freaking odd. I'd love to know the thinking behind that.

 

My theory is that each area has a limited number of builders. So, 1 builder could be building multiple buildings with different customers in mind - cheap apartments with no balconies and charge premium for condos with balconies for the view. Builders can actually cooperate with each other in one area and a build out neighborhoods of different classes simultaneously by populating entire city blocks with similar housing.

 

It's not the builder who decides - it's the architect and city planners etc.

Besides, why would you produce balcony-less buildings, knowing that for a bit extra you could give them balconies and charge double? What sort of business decision is that?

 

Balconies are not a requirement, that’s why I think it was a conscious decision to build cheap housing there.
At the same time, I saw Cabrini-Green high rises in Chicago before they were torn down and they did have balconies. Cabrini-Green projects were notorious for high crime. It was so bad that even cops refused to enter on some occasions.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabrini–Green_Homes

 

They're a requirement if you want people to actually buy them, surely? Here, apartments without balconies are notoriously difficult to rent or sell. Very few can live in them - for obvious reasons. It's almost always only the very young. 20 year old students and the like, who are out of the house for everything but sleeping.

As for costs, if other Govts can afford to include them even in low budget public housing towers, why wouldn't NY do the same? The richest nation on earth and all that ;p

 

What is the connection between balconies and crime, though?

 

Just saying that in Chicago they did build cheap public housing with balconies. Kind of making a counter argument to self.

 

Right .. the point being that it has nothing to do with budgets or 'being cheap'. Obviously there's a will to provide decent living conditions in public housing. So what's gone wrong in NY?

 

Maybe too many suicides or babies falling off them or something?

Just tossing it out there to see where it falls... LOL you see what I did there?