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Too bad we can’t convert any into housing or even have mixed use skyscrapers with residential and office floors. But that would mean building housing in California which is strictly forbidden.

Personally I think a mixed use skyscraper with residences, offices, shops, restaurants, etc would be totally cool.

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This is what Marina City in Chicago was (built in 1963): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_City

Denver started a study to look at a feasibility of converting empty off buildings to housing.

They selected 12 buildings with occupancy rates from 0 to 50%. Yes there are large office buildings that are completely empty.

Denver is an interesting case because, historically, a lot of the commercial real estate has been occupied by oil and gas (roughly 20%), as well as industries that serve oil and gas (lots of lawyers, etc.).

Oil and gas is a notoriously boom and bust as an industry. The knock on effect is that some management companies will hold back some vacancy at extremely high rates for the next boom. When you are dealing with 10 and 20 year leases, it can make sense to sit on an empty building through a few years of bust until a big tenant flush with cash shows up.

Maybe we should build the full Habitat 67 plan on the old Alameda base

https://youtu.be/D55T_v8039s

A small city in a building would be awesome, if legalized.

Do they exist anywhere else?

Yes, in Sim City.

Mixed "residences, offices, shops, restaurants" in a building describes many of the ~6 floor apartment blocks around me, but a city also has industry — workshops, chemical processing, car repairs, factories — and if that's in buildings shared with residential then I've not noticed.

From a building safety perspective, I wonder if meth labs in such apartments is a relevant risk.

I assume so; without any actual knowledge, and a meagre GCSE grade B in chemistry, my imagination says illegal labs aren't going to have high quality safety audits.

It's a very relevant risk.

https://methinyourhouse.com/meth-fumes-from-the-neighbor/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6926576/

Many cities, towns and villages in Europe are arranged like this, traditionally.

Surely the push is towards moving industry into dedicated areas (outside town) though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City

The results were mixed haha.

Atlas Obscura has a really good piece on it.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/kowloon-walled-city

The Minneapolis skyway system is similar in spirit.

> A small city in a building would be awesome, if legalized.

No longer exists but: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City

Miami has some of this... ground floor is shops and then it's residential beyond.

Le Mur in Fermont, Quebec.

It’s a massive building in the north of Quebec that contains essentially everything you’d need to avoid going out in the cold Canadian winter: apartments, stores, a school, even a strip club and a prison. It also serves as a wind block for the rest of the town that grew up around it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermont

https://www.amusingplanet.com/2018/02/fermonts-inhabitable-w...

"The line" in Saudi Arabia is apparently under construction and not vapourware. https://www.neom.com/en-us/regions/theline

https://www.npr.org/2015/01/18/378162264/welcome-to-whittier...

It’s been done somewhat time and time again depending on what you define a city as having.

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