Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
600 ft even for the Cira center. Mandeville will likely be built as well at 617, doubt the Old city towers will be, both at 636 but these to me are more a long shot
Philly didnt start building taller buildings until 1986, prior everything was kept below the height of City Hall
Yeah Houston has been in the race since the 1920's, it has a long history of tall buildings going up to the 80's but nothing taller than what already existed since then.
Back in the 80's Houston was one of the top 6 tallest cities in the world. I do wish it had kept up
Yeah Houston has been in the race since the 1920's, it has a long history of tall buildings going up to the 80's but nothing taller than what already existed since then.
Back in the 80's Houston was one of the top 6 tallest cities in the world. I do wish it had kept up
Well I think two things led to differances in building between these two cities. Houston built high during its establishing time period, more likely related to exhibit its place than true need. Houston has also expanded into other areas of the city/burbs for bsuiness centers and today the cost/benefit of building tall is not really needed, Houston has space - TMC for example can build moderately tall and wide to be more cost effective.
In Philly the taller buildings were mostly need, more and newer high end office space to replace older buildings as the core is very developed so land is very expensive plus it capitlizes on a core centric infrastructure. Additionally the demand and need for high end condos has also driven new moderately tall condo construction in the cities core, also more cost prohibitive to be shorter given the land value in the core
Well I think two things led to differances in building between these two cities. Houston built high during its establishing time period, more likely related to exhibit its place than true need. Houston has also expanded into other areas of the city/burbs for bsuiness centers and today the cost/benefit of building tall is not really needed, Houston has space - TMC for example can build moderately tall and wide to be more cost effective.
In Philly the taller buildings were mostly need, more and newer high end office space to replace older buildings as the core is very developed so land is very expensive plus it capitlizes on a core centric infrastructure. Additionally the demand and need for high end condos has also driven new moderately tall condo construction in the cities core, also more cost prohibitive to be shorter given the land value in the core
Yeah, I think that is why Houston has such a slow rate of becoming more dense
There is a lot of free land land available that is cheap and then there are the pockets of land in the already developed are that the owners sat on and let become super expensive.
It is cost effective to build medical/ medically related office building in the med center, not so cost effective on the residential side.
It would be great to flood the area with student geared condos, because apart from the students at TMC; Rice, St Thomas, TSU and Univ of Houston are within a two mile radius. But it condos in that area are already expensive.
There is so much potential there but people like to take the cheap way out. Anyway it is slowly getting there, in the time that I have been gone about 6 or so condo towers have gone up in the med center area
I think the most important point to make is no one single metric alone can really be used to compare overall skylines. I think it is just one of those multi-dimensional things. Although, it is clear where some of the top players are using any metric.
Also... I would be careful on relying on certain data sources -emporis, skyscraperpage, etc- or using the resources in certain ways. The cut-off height for indexing buildings seems to be different from city to city, perhaps in part to how they found out the information/found public records. There is also a problem with city limit size big vs small. Emporsis divides buildings by city (not metro), so if a city limit size is small and has a secondary business district in a neighboring city/suburb those buildings aren't counted. Whereas a city with large city limits would count buildings in that secondary business district.
I think the most important point to make is no one single metric alone can really be used to compare overall skylines. I think it is just one of those multi-dimensional things. Although, it is clear where some of the top players are using any metric.
Also... I would be careful on relying on certain data sources -emporis, skyscraperpage, etc- or using the resources in certain ways. The cut-off height for indexing buildings seems to be different from city to city, perhaps in part to how they found out the information/found public records. There is also a problem with city limit size big vs small. Emporsis divides buildings by city (not metro), so if a city limit size is small and has a secondary business district in a neighboring city/suburb those buildings aren't counted. Whereas a city with large city limits would count buildings in that secondary business district.
This is true in Miami's case regarding 2 of it's suburbs. In Miami Beach the city has two 550 foot buildings which is comparable to the same amount of 500+ footers that Baltimore, Cincy, Jacksonville, Louisville, Milwaukee & San Antonio have.
Sunny Isles Beach which is another suburb has four buildings over 500 feet which is comparable to the same amount of 500+ footers that Cleveland, New Orleans, St. Louis & Tampa have!
The Miami MSA has 34 buildings over 500 feet in total. If we are ranking this by MSA then Miami should rank 3rd. above Houston on the first page.
Well I think two things led to differances in building between these two cities. Houston built high during its establishing time period, more likely related to exhibit its place than true need. Houston has also expanded into other areas of the city/burbs for bsuiness centers and today the cost/benefit of building tall is not really needed, Houston has space - TMC for example can build moderately tall and wide to be more cost effective.
As far as the TMC, they have no choice. It's not far from hobby airport. Think Rosslyn and National Airport. I think Houston can establish nice density w/o building tall though. DC did it (though they have a height limit). Houston could do the same.
When it comes to skylines, this is the only time I look at municipal boundaries as acceptable. With that said, it probably would do good to compare CBD, in addition to total skyscrapers, top 10/20/30, amount over 400ft/500ft/600ft/700ft,supertall, you could also use amount of office space in the CBD. I think a combination of these metrics would be a good way to compare skylines. You could also separate multinodal cities (Atlanta, Houston, etc.) From multinodal metros for an apples to apples comparison.
I always figured that Pittsburgh swung above its weight in terms of its skyline, and these numbers bear that out. It ranked 12th in both the number of skyscrapers 500+ feet tall and maximum height.
It also appears that Philadelphia holds its own in terms of maximum height, but it could probably use a few more talls. It only has two more talls than Pittsburgh does.
I agree about Pittsburgh; arguably one of the nicest skylines in the nation as well as being fairly impressive, especially given it's population.
I think Philadelphia could use a few more tall skyscrapers but remember that there was a "gentleman's agreement" until 1987 that no building would exceed the height of Ben Franklins statue atop City Hall and this helps explain the lack of more very tall buildings there....until more recently.
I found the bus system slow. It took forever to get anywhere, and the buses ran two infrequently.
They axed the rail plan fr a high speed bus plan, I don't know where that plan is now.
The highways are always under construction, but they re do highways but end up with the same number of lanes. I don't think the road system is going to keep up with the increase in population and with the public transportation not going anywhere, I predict a serious mess.
They do have a lot of roads, but they are too small
Most All San Antonio's freeways have been expanded to 10-12 lanes. For a metro of 2.2 million San Antonio has a superior road system.
Public transportaion not going anywhere?
San Antonio is looking into all forms of mass transit. San Antonio will have all forms of mass transit within 15-20 years, and it will be developed before it reaches the size of Houston. Houston got their system just a few years ago. San Antonio will have it way before it hits 4 million people.
So what city is late in the game for it's size? I would say Houston.
Other cities that are smaller than San Antonio that have light rail, do not have a freeway network the size of San Antonio's(3,300 miles) network.
In total freeway miles, San Antonio has one of the largest networks in the U.S., I believe bigger than Houstons in total freeway miles, and because of this San Antonio hasn't felt the growing pains as bad as some congested smaller cities. Austin being one of them.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
.
