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fueled by new theories in urban and
community planning and supported by
the concern over (then) rocketing costs
of gasoline, affected residential plan-
ning and will for the foreseeable future.
For the past fifty years, the world’s
tallest buildings were designed to
provide office space. Buildings like
the Empire State Building, Woolworth
Building and World Trade Center
buildings housed corporate offices
for the world’s biggest companies.
However, sci-fi writers and futurists
predicted super high-rise living since
the 1960s and 70s. In 1977,
writer John Wagner and artist Carlos
Ezquerra imagined 200 story high-
rise apartment buildings in their week-
ly science-fiction anthology 2000 AD.
They were but two of the first dream-
ers that laid the figurative foundation
of the tallest residential building in the
world, the 89 floor 432 Park Avenue
building which opened in 2015.
According to the Council on Tall
Buildings and Urban Habitat (the
“CTBUH”), in the early 2000s, the use
of high-rise buildings shifted from corpo-
rate offices toward residential use. This
trend was halted for a short time due
to the 9/11 attacks and purchasers’
concerns with living in towering sky-
scrapers. But historically, people want
a view and new construction plans for
high-rise living has rocketed forward.
The CTBUH database now lists that
more than 100 residential skyscrapers
are under construction in the world.
In New Jersey, nowhere has seen
bigger changes than Hoboken and
Jersey City. Both skylines have been
forever altered and now feature mul-
tiple story condos and apartment
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