Is Density Good or Bad?

What is density? Is it good or bad? The answer, of course, is relative. Four dwelling units per acre may be dense in Montana, but 400 units in Manhattan may not. Looking at it another way, the density of Pruitt-Igoe, the infamous public housing complex in St. Louis (now demolished), was roughly the same as that of New York City’s eminently livable Greenwich Village. "There is an anxiety about density," notes San Francisco, California, architect Alexander Seidel, who specializes in housing. But, Seidel concludes, it is not density itself that is the issue, but rather, "good or bad solutions to density."

Thanks to Chris Steins