A 30-story apartment building is not practical without indoor plumbing, structural steel, and grid power.  The tallest dwellings prior to those maxed out at around 5 stories.<p>What qualifies as progress is a matter of opinion, but generally speaking, denser cities produce more rapid technological innovation.<p>I have no way of knowing whether the new mystery tech would make dwellings taller, or cheaper, or more environmentally friendly, or more mobile, or more self-sufficient, or better workspaces.  It&#x27;s the sort of thing that is only obvious in hindsight.  It may already be invented, but does not yet have a practical and economical application.<p>Whatever it is, it might require a cartel enforcer to mandate it in order to yield greater benefit for the society as a whole.  You&#x27;re not being oppressed when the city forces you to give up your well and septic system and connect to the municipal water and sewer.  In theory, you&#x27;re achieving greater gains through (enforced) cooperation with your neighbors.  In practice, you may be oppressed by official corruption in such a way that it wipes that common benefit out.<p>And luxury is relative.  The poorest person in the U.S. can have a better defecation experience in a public park toilet than the richest king in the world could have had on his private, hand-carved night-stool 500 years ago.  One day soon, it might be considered luxury to crap in a hole in the dirt... on Mars--as the alternative would be to do it in a pressurized closet, into a machine that recycles the water out of it and turns the rest into agricultural compost.