But taller buildings equals wider streets to such a degree that the density you win by building high mostly gets eaten up by the lost real estate used for wider streets.
As a French living now in Canada, Paris streets are narrow in general, and especially the sidewalks are ridiculous, most of the space is for cars. One of the first thing to do would be to reclaim that street space for pedestrians and cyclists, which is an ongoing, slow and painful battle.
(The difference in sunlight exposure for pedestrians between an 8-story building and a 16-story building is not remotely as large than between an 8- and a 2-story building)
Because sunlight non-exposure is one of the pinnacles of unfounded, futile arguments against density.
For public health reasons, enable emergency and disaster response, contain potential propagation of collapses, enable large volumes of people to evacuate in a timely manner, etc.
Europe has lived with narrow streets for some centuries and learned to avoid that mistake. It's a shame that somr people have forgot or never learned those lessons.
Today people still value seeing the sky and freedom of movement. I have not been everywhere in North America but usually I saw that big buildings mean wide streets around them.
Moving goods.
> Moving people is what the metro is for.
People aren't the only thing that needs moved to support a city.