[memph]

In order for this to work well, I think you need to be building next to or within a highly walkable urban neighbourhood. Greenfield sites in such locations are essentially non-existent. The few places that are this urban in North America are typically separated from greenfield sites by miles and miles of sprawl.

Also, most building around that height is on pretty large floorplates. I think a big part of the appeal of places like the North End is the narrow building frontages and the diversity they bring. The best chance at creating places like this imo is through infill of lower density neighbourhoods of urban cities like New York, Philadelphia, Toronto, Chicago, maybe Vancouver... Since this would involve building in places where existing lots are small, it will be difficult to combine them into large lots and most development will likely be fine grained. In the end, I think most of the historic examples were built through infill redevelopment (unlike parts of the Plateau or Brooklyn where I think much of what's there is the first generation of development).