Ann Arbor, Michigan: Virtual Downtown Experiments, Part II

Abstract

Inventory of the Vertical City -- Prior to considering new tall buildings, it seems appropriate to create an inventory of existing buildings in the downtown area. (In Ann Arbor, the "downtown" generally refers to the "Downtown Development Authority" or DDA: a state-enabled authority that can capture increases in taxable value to pay for improvements within the defined boundaries.) To create this inventory, building footprints were digitized from high quality aerial flown in 2002. Heights were assigned to buildings based on information from the City of Ann Arbor Planning Department (only partially complete). When the building footprints are sorted out according to height it becomes possible to visualize how the taller buildings are arranged with respect to the shorter buildings.