Some cities create housing areas by providing taller buildings.

Others create
housing by building houses on a wider area of land. What solution is better?

Rapid urbanization has been a global phenomenon for long, which has caused a serious concern
over housing expansion. While some cities tackle this by constructing taller buildings,
expanding the area for housing is what other cities adopt. This essay will discuss both of these
perspectives in city development before giving my final verdict.

Building housing areas with taller buildings will bring about certain benefits. The most obvious
one is that this practice can solve the problem of land scarcity. As more and more people are
flocking to cities, the land area required for housing is also ever-increasing. In this case, taller
buildings emerge as an optimal remedy because they can accommodate a large number of
dwellers yet take up not too huge area. This can be exemplified by Manhattan in New York city
where a multitude of tall apartments have been constructed to furnish this megacity with
sufficient housing. Secondly, people living in tall buildings can have a more convenient life. It is
because manifold city apartments incorporate various amenities ranging from supermarkets,
playgrounds to gyms, pools or banks in the same building. With these services being within
walking distance, city dwellers can enjoy different services without much difficulty.

Nevertheless, building houses on a wider area of land also offers considerable merits. To begin
with, this city development direction correlates with a more comfortable life for the inhabitants.
When growing in this way, the cities can provide houses with wider space, which means that city
dwellers can have more privacy and build their houses in accordance with their preferences. For
instance, Los Angeles has been expanded in this way, bringing higher living standards to its
dwellers since these people can relish better privacy and design their own housing space like
having gardens, building pools, making their lives much more cozy and satisfying. Furthermore,
expanding housing areas serves as an antidote to overcrowded city centers. Should housing
areas like tall apartments be concentrated on just the downtown, the city center will be
overwhelmed with people and other ensuing problems like traffic congestion, overload of
public services namely electricity, healthcare and education. Therefore, building houses on a
wider area will disperse the population density, augmenting the living quality as well as
divesting city centers of the overcrowding issues.

In conclusion, both policies can prove their worth depending on specific circumstances of
different cities. Hence, it is imperative that city planners should be flexible in deciding on what
solutions to be put into practice for the sake of sustainable urban development.