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The end result is a city with a lot of mid-rise buildings with street-level retail and restaurants with apartments or condos overhead. That's personally preferable to me than walking a sterile street in Lower Manhattan (or Downtown Houston) with a lot of tall glass boxes with limited excitement from street level.
Pretty much all of the high-rise residential towers in Chicago have street level retail and restaurants incorporated into the building too.
That's personally preferable to me than walking a sterile street in Lower Manhattan (or Downtown Houston) with a lot of tall glass boxes with limited excitement from street level.
Lower Manhattan is really not that sterile. Maybe you meant parts of Midtown.
Skyscrapers have nothing to do with urbanity, or density.
And Chicago isn't building many skyscrapers relative to other cities. Chicago and Philly are roughly comparable in current skyscraper construction. Miami would be far, far ahead of both in skyscraper construction, and NYC would be far ahead of Miami.
The best way for most cities to get more urbanity and density would be to restrict skyscraper construction, and try and build actual livable communities, not filing cabinets in the sky with gigantic parking garage bases.
Just curious....what cities are building a ton of highrises that Chicago's number isn't significant in the USA?
Chicago has 25 highrises under construction right now with another 6 doing site-work/demo but not officially pouring concrete yet.
Other that maybe New York or Miami, I don't know a lot of other cities that have 31 sites involved in highrise construction activity.
Not even trying to boost, just curious. I haven't heard of much big movement other than the obvious of NYC and Miami.
How many are going up in Miami right now that put it far far ahead?
Regardless of the overall economy, the downtown area where the highrises are located has been pretty hot for a few decades now. An increase in 65,000 jobs since 2010 as well as housing:
So many of the replies to this thread thus far have been absolutely ridiculous. I'm incredulous that "adults" could conduct themselves like such boorish 15-year-old boys in what is supposed to be an intellectually-enriching discussion.
To be fair, though, you made possibly the silliest comments in the thread yet.
"The end result is a city with a lot of mid-rise buildings with street-level retail and restaurants with apartments or condos overhead. That's personally preferable to me than walking a sterile street in Lower Manhattan (or Downtown Houston) with a lot of tall glass boxes with limited excitement from street level."
DC's core is almost certainly the most sterile and bland of any of the major U.S. downtown. It would be the counter-argument to advocating for midrises over highrises.
And Lower Manhattan is almost certainly the most vibrant and non-sterile/bland environment in North America. There are almost no "tall glass boxes" in Lower Manhattan; the built environment is mostly 19th century and early 20th century, and even the Wall Street area is dominated by older construction. I would guess that 95% of structures south of 14th wouldn't be glass. Street level vibrancy in Lower Manhattan is like 100x that of DC.
Downtown Houston is essentially the polar opposite of Lower Manhattan. I'm not sure if one could find two more different core urban environments in the U.S.
And then you bring up Phoenix, for some odd reason, which has nothing to do with the conversation, and which wouldn't be in the top 200 most urban U.S. environments.
Just curious....what cities are building a ton of highrises that Chicago's number isn't significant in the USA?
Again, the claim was that Chicago was building a lot of highrises. You claim Chicago is 3rd in the U.S. in highrise construction, which would confirm this to not be true.
Chicago, historically, was the #2 U.S. city for highrise construction, far ahead of every city but NYC. But now Miami is the #2 city for highrise construction, far ahead of every city but NYC.
And SF, LA and Philly have roughly similar highrise activity as Chicago. They're all basically in the same weight-class of highrise construction. This would have never been true in the past.
So, yeah, on a relative basis, Chicago has lost some ground in terms of highrise growth. What probably happened is that Chicago overbuilt in past decades, so doesn't need as much highrise growth going forward.
In wasn't too long ago that people would even compare Chicago to NYC in terms of highrise construction. Now that would be kind of a joke. There are dozens of supertalls planned or u/c in NYC, and hundreds of highrises. There probably has never been a point in history when there was such an enormous gap in construction numbers between the two cities.
Miami, nowadays, and for the foreseeable future, will be the clear #2 in highrise construction in the U.S.
Again, the claim was that Chicago was building a lot of highrises. You claim Chicago is 3rd in the U.S. in highrise construction, which would confirm this to not be true.
Chicago, historically, was the #2 U.S. city for highrise construction, far ahead of every city but NYC. But now Miami is the #2 city for highrise construction, far ahead of every city but NYC.
And SF, LA and Philly have roughly similar highrise activity as Chicago. They're all basically in the same weight-class of highrise construction. This would have never been true in the past.
So, yeah, on a relative basis, Chicago has lost some ground in terms of highrise growth. What probably happened is that Chicago overbuilt in past decades, so doesn't need as much highrise growth going forward.
In wasn't too long ago that people would even compare Chicago to NYC in terms of highrise construction. Now that would be kind of a joke. There are dozens of supertalls planned or u/c in NYC, and hundreds of highrises. There probably has never been a point in history when there was such an enormous gap in construction numbers between the two cities.
Miami, nowadays, and for the foreseeable future, will be the clear #2 in highrise construction in the U.S.
It is mind blowing that NYC is still the leader in high rises. They have so many and just keep on going.
How far behind is Miami from NYC? Is it similar to the distance between Chicago and NYC at its (CHI) peak?
mostly find them pretty close - not sure a clear edge to either in this regard. To me both among the best in this regard with only NYC really significantly ahead of either. Chicago and Philly are similar to SF and Boston in this regard all with their own nuances
LA is clearly the second most vibrant city in the U.S., yet it's certainty not the second most urban U.S. city. That would probably be SF/Chicago/Philly/Boston all in a rough tie.
London is probably the most vibrant European city, yet it's possibly the least urban major European city.
Again, the claim was that Chicago was building a lot of highrises. You claim Chicago is 3rd in the U.S. in highrise construction, which would confirm this to not be true.
Chicago, historically, was the #2 U.S. city for highrise construction, far ahead of every city but NYC. But now Miami is the #2 city for highrise construction, far ahead of every city but NYC.
And SF, LA and Philly have roughly similar highrise activity as Chicago. They're all basically in the same weight-class of highrise construction. This would have never been true in the past.
So, yeah, on a relative basis, Chicago has lost some ground in terms of highrise growth. What probably happened is that Chicago overbuilt in past decades, so doesn't need as much highrise growth going forward.
In wasn't too long ago that people would even compare Chicago to NYC in terms of highrise construction. Now that would be kind of a joke. There are dozens of supertalls planned or u/c in NYC, and hundreds of highrises. There probably has never been a point in history when there was such an enormous gap in construction numbers between the two cities.
Miami, nowadays, and for the foreseeable future, will be the clear #2 in highrise construction in the U.S.
I didn't claim anything. You gave very definitive statements regarding cities and their highrise construction. I stated the one that I knew, that Chicago has 31 sites either under construction or having site work done for spring/summer construction.
My statement was out of curiosity asking what exactly the stats are for Miami, or Philadelphia, Los Angeles or San Francisco since you said that Miami was basically leaving Chicago in the dust regarding highrise construction and other cities are also even with Chicago in highrise construction.
I'm interested in stats - so what are they?? You seem quite sure of yourself, I assumed you would know.
I found research of the number of highrises completed in US cities from 2000 to 2013 (18 floors or higher):
New York: 281
Chicago: 149
Miami: 74
Atlanta: 50
Las Vegas: 50
Houston:38
San Diego: 35
Seattle: 30
Dallas: 22 San Francisco: 22
Boston: 21
Arlington: 17
Portland: 14
Austin: 14 Los Angeles: 13 Philadelphia: 12
Miami doesn't include Miami Beach and the coastal cities, so it's going to be fairly close to Chicago if you include those.
I would be very impressed with San Francisco, Los Angeles and Philadelphia if you're correct that they're around even with Chicago's 31 sites going up at the moment consitering that in the previous 13 year period they only had 22, 13 and 12 buildings completed vs Chicago's 149.
I don't really follow where you think Chicago has slowed down from its historical building trends. 31 sites under construction now would be fairly on track with the previous rate of 149 buildings built over a 13 year period. That period was the biggest "boom" as far as highrise construction in the city except maybe the 1920's.
Chicago's 149 highrises built from 2000 to 2013 actually outpaces the total stock of highrises standing in any US city as of 2013 except New York, Miami and Houston. I don't really understand how it's "falling behind" and basically should be embarrassed or something. It built more in a 13 year period than have ever been built in anything other than the three cities mentioned above, and Houston was only marginally higher, with 174 buildings as of 2013.
Last edited by Chicago60614; 04-17-2015 at 02:14 PM..
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! This guy must be the biggest Philly homer in the world!! Philadelphia isn't exactly "rapidly growing".
