 So this year, Mark's my 50th year as a member of Screen Actors Guild called them, said, hey, never been to a SAG award before. And that's, I don't think a lot of people get to hit this milestone very often. Would it be possible for my wife and I to attend the SAG awards? Just as an expression of, hey, congrats for 50 years in the union. They said no. Wow, what a shock. I was expecting a big ball of your twist. Hey, welcome back to our studio with our X's and Corbin. Actually, there is a huge twist at the end because right as I got off the phone, I got another phone call that said that the union president got in a plane crash. So I got on my helicopter in the backyard and I flew over there with Andrani. They tried to stop me, but I punched the guy out. Good. Andrani passed out. They took her to the hospital. I ran into the fuselage. Oh yeah. Cut my way through the electrical things. There was some guy laying in the chair watching Netflix, but that was okay. I grabbed the head of Screen Actors Guild, saved her. Oh wow. Then went back to the hospital and told Andrani that I love her more than Reika. But I'm still not going to the SAG awards. Okay. Hey, welcome back to our studio with your X's and Corbin. I'm Reck. You can follow me on Instagram, Twitter for more juicy content. I think it's great to be in front of the studio for a little bit. What the crap were you just doing? Uh, your mother. Wow. I didn't know she had one of those. Oh man. Today we got a video that says, why India doesn't build skyscrapers? I did not know that they didn't. I didn't know they didn't want to. Listen, let's think about that. Because technically in Mumbai, there's tall buildings, but no skyscrapers. Delhi, no skyscrapers. Calcutta, no skyscrapers. What defines the skyscrapers? They have really tall buildings. But they have tall buildings. But yeah, what's the height limit that makes it suddenly become a skyscraper? LA doesn't have a ton of skyscrapers. In downtown we have that. We have a couple that... Everything, but a lot of earthquakes. So you don't tend to make stuff really tall here. No. But yeah, I mean with the population density of India, you'd think they'd have... Yeah, it's interesting. I've never thought about that before, but it's true. There really aren't any tall, giant buildings. I wonder why. Maybe there's a... Well, this will hopefully inform us. If this is wrong, blame the video and let us know why. Yes. Travel to almost any bustling city in Asia and you'll notice that many of them have the same thing in common. They build big, massive skyscrapers... Especially China. ...over city centers. Largely a product of economic growth and the demand for space... You're right. ...in just areas. Then there's India. The country's home to some of the most highly populated cities in the world and has the second highest GDP on the continent after China. About to pass China. They really reflect these structures. It has some skyscrapers, but they're mostly in Mumbai. There aren't very many of them and... Yeah, I am. Yeah, I just... ...that's compared to neighboring Asian cities. Mumbai sits on a peninsula where land is both scarce and expensive. Normally, such constraints force developers to build upwards. Think New York or Hong Kong. And yet this city's still far behind the skyscraper game. So if India's population and wealth are so high, why does it build so low? Well, it all has to do with a little known rule holding the country back from going big and managing density. This is how politics, infrastructure, and money are stunting India's skyline. And when do they want it, though? Right. Is it really stunting it? Yeah. That's a negative connotation. So, yes, skyscrapers are symbols of things like wealth, power, and growth. And they tend to rise in places where there's... Basically, big penises. Right. China has constructed nearly 1,100 skyscrapers... Real big penises, China. ...tall. It's followed by South Korea with 86, Malaysia with 61, and Indonesia with 48. Wow. America does not have a big penises. ...and only a couple of buildings even close to 300 meters under construction. That's a very unusual difference considering its population of 1.4 billion people and its overall wealth. Instead of going tall, the country tends to build outwards. And historically, there are a few reasons for that. One is infrastructure. With such a large population, India experiences frequent power outages, especially during the hotter months when demand for electricity is high, and many of its cities often grapple with access to clean water. Now, the availability of power and water are important for skyscrapers. High-rise is consumed more than low-rise buildings, so it's essential that the surrounding infrastructure can support them. That would make some sense. That's part of the explanation, but really, there's an even bigger culprit behind the country's short skyline. A building code mandated by the government that's been in place for decades. It's known as the Floor Space Index, or Floor Area Ratio, excitingly abbreviated to FSI. The FSI is the ratio between the total amount of floor space a developer can construct to the plot of land that floor space is being built on. It determines the total area that's allowed to be built on a site. Sharish Patel, a civil engineer, explains what this means with a little bit of maths. So if you have a plot of one hectare and an FSI of one, let us say, then you can build one hectare of floor space, which would be if your footprint is half a hectare, you can build ground in one upper. Half a hectare on the ground floor, half a hectare on the first floor, that makes one hectare, which is the plot area multiplied by the FSI. The lower the FSI number, the lower a building's volume and floor space can be. According to urban developers, this tool should be used in a way that doesn't create scarcity of land. It can help to reduce land cost per unit in areas where the price of land is expensive or limited. Now, several cities have these building codes for height restrictions in place, but across India, they are stricter than most countries with similar profiles. Take a look at Mumbai. In 1991, in an attempt to live a new construction and keep migrants out, Mumbai introduced an FSI of just 1.3. To give you a bit of context on just how low that number is, in New York, Manhattan has an average FSI of 15. And charges you $4,000 a square foot. Hong Kong's FSI is up to 12, Tokyo's is 20, and Singapore's is a staggering 25. Horizontal growth in Mumbai is limited due to its geographical location on an island, but the low FSI limits it even further. It wasn't until 2022 that Mumbai loosened restrictions, but only slightly. Now, the FSI ranges between 2.5 and 5, depending on the exact location. Other cities across India have similar or even lower numbers. The country cites health and safety considerations for these restrictions. Isn't that really billionaire guy build like a big penis in Mumbai? Can we see a video about that? We drove by that building? Ant guy, right? That's like a famous ant. It doesn't really solve those issues. The biggest misconception about density in planning is higher FSI equals higher copulation density, which is not true. You can have very tall buildings with one nice floor, one flat apartment bar floor, and only so many people living. And you will have areas like Dharavi, which are completely low-lying slums, but the copulation density is super high. Yeah. The outcome of these notions has a big impact on the country, and it goes far beyond the lack of some impressive skyscrapers. Mumbai, the one biggest consequence is affordability. If you don't add floor space where people want to live, then the limited floor space becomes super expensive, right? With so many job opportunities, We've been on the bridge. like Mumbai and Bangalore, people have been flocking to these city centres. But with lower FSI's and higher populations, developers can't keep up. But you don't accommodate people in more compact footprints closer to the city centre. At least you guys have good train systems. If you want to be in cities, work in cities, you will spread out towards, right? So you will spread horizontally. You will have to construct more roads leading out, which is more important. That's how LA does it. We've got the land mass to do it. Planers say increasing FSI would be the best way. That's why it takes a billion years to get out of here. Leaving a crowding and lowering housing prices. But it would also have to be accompanied by investments in mass transportation, roads and other vital infrastructure networks. But while looser FSI restrictions and more skyscrapers could help address some of India's urban challenges, the general population might not be on board with the idea just yet. People do have a negative connotation of skyscrapers and density. It's the one or two buildings that come up, which are higher density. Like I said, they come up in an area with poor infrastructure, green spaces. Though it's only a small increase, the recent change. Or they put it right next to a slum. Could indicate a taller future for the city's skyline and better managed population density. Development has increased rapidly in just the last few years. In 2022 alone, 31 skyscrapers are set to be completed in India. 27 of them are going to be in Mumbai, reaching heights of around 200 meters and mostly offering residential space. India's population growth, especially in its major cities, isn't slowing down anytime soon. And real estate costs will continue to rise as space dwindles. But if the country builds further into the sky and invests more in its infrastructure, then its open housing crisis could start to ease. And Mumbai could find itself with a brand new skyline. This video was made possible by Bluebeam. You can learn more about that at the link below. And as always, if you enjoyed this video and you want to get more from the definitive video channel for construction, make sure you're subscribed to The B1M. Informative video. Yeah. If there's anything obviously wrong in the video, please let us know down in the comments. Yeah, because we know literally nothing about this. Nothing. That's super interesting though that it has such a rule against that because that would be a lot of people's first inkling of like, oh, you have a like a affordable housing crisis and you'd have a lack of land. Well, why wouldn't you build up? That's why Manhattan is the way Manhattan is. Yeah. And that's why they built Central Park because they knew as they were developing it. I'm not even talking about extending Manhattan. Have you seen that? No, like literally putting more land in at the end. And really? To build it up. That's one of the proposals that I've seen. That would be expensive real estate. And I think the people who are right there on the lower... If you're on the lower west side, I don't think you're going to want people to extend that real estate because you've got prime real estate being down on the lower south side, the lower west side. But that's why it is so high is because there were so many people coming to New York, Manhattan's a tiny little island when you count all five boroughs. I mean, Brooklyn doesn't have a lot of skyscrapers, but the main inter part, the reason there are so many skyscrapers is you can't expand outward. You have to go up. Yeah. There's nowhere else to put people. Yeah, that's... Which for Andrani and I, we, I mean, we love cities. So the more building, the better. And it makes sense that I find it interesting all of the rationale behind why they might or might not build. And clearly maybe it's just a matter of developers doing it and the hurdles they had to cross because they're clearly not opposed to it. They have how many coming up, he just said in Mumbai right now. Yeah, 31 or something like that. I think it's primarily just been a matter of need. And I think one of the bigger contributors maybe is the energy aspect. Because that is the more you build up, the more energy you're in electricity and heat and water you have to get to those places. I think the one video we saw that I never posted, just because we didn't like it at all, was the video of that place that really, that billionaire guy that built his house right next to the slum. And it's like an absurd house that's way too big. Yeah. And also it's just like a big FU to literally everybody down below. Yeah, my... As opposed to something if you built like a affordable housing. One of the things that always troubles me, I know it does you and anybody with a heart, is that whenever a dignitary comes to a place in any country or a massive sporting event like the Olympics or the World Cup is done, then everybody's ready to beautify a neighborhood because they can make money off of that beautification. But if people need it... Yep. Yeah. Luckily the Olympics has started to get a little better. They're now only accepting countries that already have the infrastructure as opposed to... Oh, except for the one they just... I know the one they just... Big disaster. But it's Saudi... No, it's so many countries had vied for the Olympics in the hope that doing so would bolster their economies because it does bring in a crap load of money. But the Olympics... Yeah, the Olympics require you to spend more than your countries ever spent. And then if you don't make that back, up yours, pal. Yep. Stuck with all that empty stadiums and which is why they're wanting... Like for the World Cup, it's a three of Canada, us and Mexico. Right. We'll have people right here in the brand new beautiful stadium that they built here in Inglewood in Los Angeles. Yeah. But anyways, very interesting video. Let us know other informative videos. If there's anything wrong in this, please let us know what that is down below.