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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.
Impressive:
NYC
Chicago
Pittsburgh
Seattle
Harrisburg - packs some punch for a city <50,000 popn.
New Brunswick
Tulsa
Birmingham - always thought it was a nice one for a city its size
Underwhelming
Norfolk - for the closest thing to an "urban center" of a metro of nearly 2 million, it's not much!
Phoenix
Dallas - looked interesting in pics, but in person I felt there wasn't very much to it
Raleigh
Underwhelming
Norfolk - for the closest thing to an "urban center" of a metro of nearly 2 million, it's not much!
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.
On another note I’ve read a couple other posters excuse Colorado Springs as being in the shadow of Denver for it’s small skyline. CO Springs is a typical mountain west city IMO. They all exploded with economic and population growth during the age of the automobile, and tend to share the same squat, and boxy buildings in their core. I don’t think it has anything to do with Denver sucking all the height/density in a vacuum. I think it’s just a cultural predisposition of the population bases. San Jose, Fresno, Tucson, Albuquerque, Boise, El Paso, all share the same underwhelming qualities in their skylines compared to their metro population peers. Phoenix is probably the most glaring example of this dysmorphic size to skyline ratio. One might argue Sacramento lags its peers as well. That’s not to say they aren’t great at street level. They just grew up after the organic urbanity of their legacy counterparts.
Id consider both Denver and SLC exemptions to this.
Last edited by Landolakes90; 06-01-2022 at 11:26 AM..
I was under the impression that Phoenix had airport-imposed height restrictions which limit the height of high-rise buildings. But even then it's a dearth of density that kills it in the rankings, as Honolulu (which is approx 1/5th the size of PHX) absolutely crushes Phoenix with its density (even though both cities' tallest buildings are comparable in height). My guess is that for Phoenix, it's simply cheaper to build outward rather than upward while land in Hawaii is crazy-expensive.
Omaha, Des Moines and Little Rock all have strong skylines for their size. Wichita, Albuquerque and Boise, not as much, but from what I gather Boise is trying to up its game.
10 years ago I would have said Milwaukee was underwhelming for a city its size (especially being so close to Chicago with a fairly high population density and downtown employment). But the past 10 years has seen fairly amazing highrise construction downtown and some of the more recent projects like Northwestern Mutual, 7Seventy7, Moderne, St. John's, and BMO tower have started to move the skyline to be more robust and more modern.
Plus now U/C the world's tallest mass timber building Ascent at 284 feet and the tallest residential building in Wisconsin the Couture at 537 feet as well as a couple more approved projects over 200 feet will definitely move the Milwaukee skyline to more normal for a city its size and density in a few years. IMO pretty amazing highrise growth given it is a rust belt legacy city that is declining in population at the city level. With so many residential highrises underway there the downtown area population will likely by pushing 40k by 2025, third largest in the Midwest after Chicago and Minneapolis. Now if only they could expand the streetcar and get a couple light rail lines there!
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 an urban node of Norfolk. Should one consider it the actual core, I would then argue it is a better example of underwhelming compared to Norfolk.
On another note I’ve read a couple other posters excuse Colorado Springs as being in the shadow of Denver for it’s small skyline. CO Springs is a typical mountain west city IMO. They all exploded with economic and population growth tend to share the same squat, and boxy buildings in their core. I don’t think it has anything to do with Denver sucking all the height/density in a vacuum. I think it’s just a cultural predisposition of the population bases. San Jose, Fresno, Tucson, Albuquerque, Boise, El Paso, all share the same underwhelming qualities in their skylines compared to their metro population peers. Phoenix is probably the most glaring example of this dysmorphic size to skyline ratio. One might argue Sacramento lags its peers as well. That’s not to say they aren’t great at street level. They just grew up after the organic urbanity of their legacy counterparts.
Id consider both Denver and SLC exemptions to this.
Squat highrises are the most economical type. That's why they get built. Culture isn't relevant, other than in helping define the land use codes.
As for cities like Colorado Springs, the net effect will vary, but there's no question that a city off by itself will have opportunities that one next to a bigger city won't.
San Jose has very low height limits, and it's part of the SF area.
10 years ago I would have said Milwaukee was underwhelming for a city its size (especially being so close to Chicago with a fairly high population density and downtown employment). But the past 10 years has seen fairly amazing highrise construction downtown and some of the more recent projects like Northwestern Mutual, 7Seventy7, Moderne, St. John's, and BMO tower have started to move the skyline to be more robust and more modern.
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 always thought LA and Phoenix skylines were underwhelming for their respective city sizes. I think Cleveland's skyline with the Terminal tower and some of the older buildings is impressive for its size.
If this isn’t limited to the US, which it doesn’t appear to be, Vancouver is by far the most impressive skyline for a city it’s size.
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