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I really have no idea why some place needs 8-10 more skyscrapers simply for show when they would likely be mostly empty. In some places the geology dictates the height of buildings. It is too costly to sink a foundation into thousands of feet of sand or into marshy land. I live in a city with an impressive mountain landscape that is cited as a greater advantage than just another tall building pathetically vying for attention. The constant infatuation with skyscrapers is silly.
Geology no longer matters that much like it was in the past. They can build skyscrapers in any type of soil now (sand, swamp, artificial islands, etc). What matters is economic viability.
I really have no idea why some place needs 8-10 more skyscrapers simply for show when they would likely be mostly empty. In some places the geology dictates the height of buildings. It is too costly to sink a foundation into thousands of feet of sand or into marshy land. I live in a city with an impressive mountain landscape that is cited as a greater advantage than just another tall building pathetically vying for attention. The constant infatuation with skyscrapers is silly.
Good points. Here in OKC a lot of the problem is to build really tall buildings you have to "tornado proof" them. It's not worth the cost.
Furthermore, places like Albuquerque, Phoenix, and Tucson were essentially "towns" until after WWII. There was never any real pressure to build a bunch of tall bunch of expensive tall buildings when "car culture" was taking over and you had vast amounts of desert on the cities perimeter that was just a few dollars an acre.
Finally, out west, your point about "the view" is not without merit. In Tucson, they built Tucson Medical Center as one story structure rather than building it in levels because citizens didn't want the hospital blocking the view of the foothills and mountains. TMC seems more like an airport than a hospital.
Over my years of lurking on here I’ve seen several folks argue that VA Beach with its (in my opinion) inorganic city center is now the true core of Hampton Roads. Personally I would give it a skyline pass because I consider it a suburban node of Norfolk. Should one consider it the actual core, I would then argue it is a better example of underwhelming compared to Norfolk.
Va Beach is more populous (it's nearly 300 sq miles of sprawl), but it's not an urban core in the manner that Norfolk is. Va Beach doesn't have a downtown (rather a master-planned "Town Center"). Norfolk is the downtown of the Hampton Roads area. It has the largest (though very underwhelming) skyline, the cultural institutions like the opera, symphony hall, minor league hockey and baseball facilities, etc. Norfolk's influence in the region is quite a bit diluted compared to other metro areas' relationship with a core city, though.
VB is a suburban (and parly rural) county that incorporated itself into a city. It would be like Fairfax County incorporating itself into a city that is more populous than DC. That wouldn't make Fairfax County City the core of that metro area, IMO.
I would argue that Milwaukee suffers from an “angle” problem, over a lack of skyline. Most folks not familiar with MKE mostly identify it from the water front shots which historically show the US Bank tower and everything else appears underwhelming. Most of downtown sits down hill from the lakeshore so it appears artificially shorter than it is. If you view Milwaukee from just about any other angle, especially from the west you can see how dense it and diverse it actually is.
I've visited Milwaukee before, and have to totally agree with this comment. And that if you view Milwaukee's skyline from the east(like say if you're on a boat on Lake Michigan), it doesn't pop out as much. And that it pops out more, if you look at it from the south(looking north) or west(looking east).
Quote:
Originally Posted by DannFrankenstein
Some smaller cities that I think have impressive skylines for their size:
Waukegan, IL
Jackson, MI
Battle Creek, MI
These places all look like they have 40,000 or 50,000 more people than they do
I need to look up Battle Creek's downtown skyline, later. I looked up Jackson's skyline, and for it mostly consisting of older early 20th century buildings, it looked like a nicer skyline(for a city that small) than I was suspecting it'd be like.
As for Waukegan's downtown, it has a few taller buildings, but I wouldn't say it has much of even a small skyline. One of its tallest buildings is abandoned(the Chandler's building, where a former local office stationery chain once had a store inside of), with a slumlord owning that building who hasn't done much with that building for all the years he has owned it. From the few pics I've ever seen of that place, and from what I sense, the condition of that building isn't in good shape, and I worry one day it will get demolished. Also there was a former newspaper building(Waukegan News-Star?), that got torn down in the 2010s. I mean I do like that the old Karcher Hotel building got restored(into ArtSpace Lofts, or something like that), but it's a big crime that the Chandler's building has sat abandoned as long as it has. Also the courthouse building in downtown Waukegan, isn't exactly an attractive looking building. Although I do like how some efforts have been made to bring back Genesee Street, with the monthly ArtWauk artist gallery event. And that the Genesee Theater got restored, as well. This all said, to me Jackson's small skyline is more interesting to me than Waukegan's. Finally for the future, I'll have to bring up Jackson's(MI) skyline, for the a skyline vs. skyline thread. For too long, I had overlooked Jackson's older skyline.
As I said above, I'm making a big mental note to later today, look up Battle Creek's skyline. For sure, I will bring up Jackson, MI in a future skyline vs. skyline post.
I think St. Louis' skyline and cityscape in general is really misunderstood. For one, even at it's greatest population density St. Louis was never a tall city and surely not a monocentric city. Then throw in the Arch as a defacto height barrier, add in 60 years of slow post industrial growth, and a competing suburban CBD with it's own nice skyline. St. Louis never had a chance to compete with flashy new skylines we see now. With that said, St. Louis is starting to see some really interesting hi-rises pop up in the past couple of years. I actually think St. Louis is positioning itself for a mini hi-rise boom in the next decade or so, because the last few mammoth sized historic properties are being rehabbed or have plans of rehabilitation.
I think St. Louis' skyline and cityscape in general is really misunderstood. For one, even at it's greatest population density St. Louis was never a tall city and surely not a monocentric city. Then throw in the Arch as a defacto height barrier, add in 60 years of slow post industrial growth, and a competing suburban CBD with it's own nice skyline. St. Louis never had a chance to compete with flashy new skylines we see now. With that said, St. Louis is starting to see some really interesting hi-rises pop up in the past couple of years. I actually think St. Louis is positioning itself for a mini hi-rise boom in the next decade or so, because the last few mammoth sized historic properties are being rehabbed or have plans of rehabilitation.
I agree. Many see St Louis from riverfront or arch view and think that is it to the city. It's definitely a neighborhood city. You have a good 5 to 7 miles of good urban bones that is referred to as the central corridor. Many new cities haven't had the chance to develop yet. I am looking forward to the new skyscrapers of Ball Park Village and more residential towers for the Central West End.
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