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I don't think it's that simple. It's not just a matter of other cities being older.
You have to factor in things like:
White flight to the suburbs
It's a variety of factors, but the age of the city isn't as big a factor as when the cities boomed and what was going on at the time. You see all those parking lots in sunbelt cities but pull up the concrete and you see the foundations of structures that were demolished to build those lots. So it's not really that the cities didn't have as long to grow, it's more that the highways destroyed neighborhoods in more ways than one.
This is exactly what happened in San Antonio. Downtown stalled out for a long time and most mid-highrises were built out in the suburbs or huge corporate campuses like USAA or Valero.
The USAA HQ has 5.1M square feet and the Sears Tower has 4.5M... to put it in perspective.
Not that Skylines are a particularly exciting measure of anything meaningful, but Atlanta's is overall bigger than Philadelphia's. Philadelphia wins in maximum height of the tallest five buildings, but Atlanta has more tall buildings that expand farther. Philadelphia's skyline fits a lot of tall buildings in a relatively compact space.
Atlanta’s skyline is 50% negative space. Hard pass.
Agree. Even the most clearly staged shots of Atlanta don't do much for me. All of that building, and there's still very little that's cohesive about it.
Philadelphia's skyline fits a lot of tall buildings in a relatively compact space.
It's also the granularity and composition that matters in my book, not just raw height. How the buildings complement and interact with each other--and having sufficient architectural diversity--makes for the best skylines.
It's also the granularity and composition that matters in my book, not just raw height. How the buildings complement and interact with each other--and having sufficient architectural diversity--makes for the best skylines.
This is true, but modern buildings still dominate Philly's skyline which is mostly due to the unofficial height restriction that prevented anything taller than city hall from being built until the late 80's when One Liberty Place--about 400 ft taller than city hall at around 550 ft tall--was constructed. Although plenty of historic lowrises and midrises are visible as part of the larger urban fabric, most of the shorter historic highrises are essentially hidden within the urban core and UC doesn't really have any to speak of. I always thought that was an interesting feature of the skyline of one of the nation's most historic cities.
Personally, I find the skylines of both Philly and Atlanta impressive but in their own unique ways. Philly is effectively coastal, more centralized, flat, and largely developed while Atlanta is inland, more decentralized, a little hillier, and has its signature tree canopy which gives you two totally different experiences when it comes to engaging their skylines. I never grew tired of viewing Philly's skyline driving into the city on the Walt Whitman or Ben Franklin bridges from Jersey when I lived there and I never grew tired of viewing Atlanta's driving south along GA 400 or I-85 during my time there.
Los Angeles has a pretty impressive skyline now compared to 10+ years ago. I remember there was a time when hardly anybody knew where downtown L.A. was. The city resisted building upward for many years, and concentrated largely on suburban type of development. L.A. is now completely landlocked with no more room to build outward, which is why the city has become taller & denser recently.
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Originally Posted by Charlotte485
2.) Chicago / Dallas
Dallas has a tall skyline, but the city lacks density overall compared to Chicago. The other large Texas cities are similar in this regard.
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Originally Posted by Charlotte485
3.) San Francisco / Houston
Houston actually has a great skyline, and there are some impressively tall buildings outside of the downtown core. Like Dallas, it's not a densely populated city due to all the outward sprawl. San Francisco is one of the few western cities that isn't spread out, and is the main reason why their downtown is tall & dense.
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Originally Posted by Charlotte485
4.) Philadelphia / Atlanta
Atlanta has an amazing skyline for a city its size. Philadelphia's downtown skyline is impressive, but a good part of the city is a crime infested dump.
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Originally Posted by Charlotte485
5.) Seattle / Phoenix
Definitely agree! I live in Phoenix, and you wouldn't believe how much resistance there has been to tall buildings. People claim that Sky Harbor Int'l Airport being close to downtown is the reason for the lack of skyscrapers, but that's mostly nonsense. We have a NIMBY problem here, and a large part of it comes from residents who don't want their mountain views blocked by tall structures. Another reason why we don't have an impressive skyline is the lack of corporate HQs. Many of the large companies based here are located in suburban office parks, and two of the large regional banking centers have even moved out of their downtown highrise offices recently. Phoenix's downtown has actually improved quite a bit in the last few years, but it's still very lacking compared to other cities in our size range.
San Jose also has a very underwhelming downtown area, but that's largely because of San Francisco being so close, and San Jose was developed mainly as a large suburb in its heyday. It's one of the most decentralized cities I've ever seen. Another city with a rather unimpressive skyline is San Antonio. I never could understand why San Antonio's downtown seems so smallish compared to Dallas, Houston, and Austin.
This is true, but modern buildings still dominate Philly's skyline which is mostly due to the unofficial height restriction that prevented anything taller than city hall from being built until the late 80's when One Liberty Place--about 400 ft taller than city hall at around 550 ft tall--was constructed. Although plenty of historic lowrises and midrises are visible as part of the larger urban fabric, most of the shorter historic highrises are essentially hidden within the urban core and UC doesn't really have any to speak of. I always thought that was an interesting feature of the skyline of one of the nation's most historic cities.
Personally, I find the skylines of both Philly and Atlanta impressive but in their own unique ways. Philly is effectively coastal, more centralized, flat, and largely developed while Atlanta is inland, more decentralized, a little hillier, and has its signature tree canopy which gives you two totally different experiences when it comes to engaging their skylines. I never grew tired of viewing Philly's skyline driving into the city on the Walt Whitman or Ben Franklin bridges from Jersey when I lived there and I never grew tired of viewing Atlanta's driving south along GA 400 or I-85 during my time there.
They’re both great imo. Why some other posters here have to bash Atlanta to prop up Philly’s skyline here is beyond me.
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