Dated Skylines
 

What cities' skylines - whether large, medium or small - appear to be visibly stuck in the past? What cities' skylines are stagnant, filled with brown/beige eyesores or boxes, and could use a few new towers to reinvigorate their respective aesthetic? Think skylines that take you back to the 70s, 80s or 90s.

I'll start, in no particular order.

*Some of these cities' (Houston, Dallas) skylines were considered among the most modern in the nation during their boom periods, yet have been unable to maintain the growth that led to their one-time prominence. Others were never considered great (San Antonio, Cleveland).

Houston
Dallas
San Antonio
Cleveland
Detroit
New Orleans
Orlando
Phoenix
Indianapolis
Oakland

Pittsburgh

Outside of the new PNC Tower (which filled a gap and added another 500-footer, but is nothing great), Pittsburgh’s skyline is pretty much unchanged since the 1980s.

There have been some additions to the downtown skyline, but nothing that makes much of a mark.

Cincinnati.

Queen City Square is an abomination with that tiara, and the other top-two tallest were built before the start of the 2nd World War.

Office towers were very rare outside the United States until about 2000. So by 2050 foreigners will take a lot of interest in the "old" 1950-2000 skyscrapers in U.S. cities, in addition to the actually old ones in NYC, Chicago, Detroit, and a handful of other places.

Fresno.

https://cf-images.us-east-1.prod.bol...atch/image.jpg
image


I'm not picking on Fresno. I just think given its size, it has a ton of potential and seemingly plenty of space that's eager for development.

If I recall correctly, PNC Tower was originally supposed to go 600' and got chopped down a small amount. You're right that it's nothing really special.

Hartford hasn't changed much since the 1980's. Most of the Western MA and Upstate NY cities haven't really changed, such as Worcester, Springfield, Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo....

Atlanta is mostly stuck in the 90's, except Buckhead and a bit of Midtown.

Detroit could qualify, but obviously has a (potentially) bright future if the Dan Snyder projects come to fruition.

Pretty much all the Ohio cities qualify.

New Orleans never seems to have fully recovered (at least in terms of forging ahead) from Katrina.

Birmingham Alabama doesn't seem to have much going on, whereas Mobile built the massive Battle House Tower.

Tampa and Jacksonville seem kind of left behind in the scheme of Florida's ongoing boom.

I have barely seen anything from Tulsa and Kansas City recently.

Minneapolis hasn't really built much in the impact department since the early 2000's. I know they have a pair of 500'+ on the way which should take it back off the list. With that said, I don't think Saint Paul has built much either.

I guess I also mainly agree with the first poster's list. It's always interesting to agree with someone when you vehemently disagree with that same person elsewhere!

Half the Phoenix skyline has been built since 2000, its still not much to look at so its hard to find a large array of pictures over the years to get good comparisons

these are roughly 15-20 years old (guessing)

https://storage.googleapis.com/hippo...fda47a-800.jpg

https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/me...00/phoenix.jpg

This is about as close as I can get for the same angle today, And that empty corner right front and center is about to start work on condo tower:

https://goo.gl/maps/oRXtCMiAx4Qv3PuY8

https://goo.gl/maps/VLt5i4ZKGnpyUPXb8

the four buildings in the coinciding photo above are blocked by the new stuff if that inst clear

Picture from 2 years ago you can see some of the buildings from the post card above, this view is now largely blocked by a new development across the street. https://goo.gl/maps/myrnKL48tb25Ahk78

And here you can see the original line of buildings from the pics above now surrounded by new ones. https://goo.gl/maps/AVKqgo6TCd19Jtg97

Cologne:

https://previews.123rf.com/images/eu...ne-skyline.jpg
123rf.com


I kid, I kid! I guess it's supposed to be stuck in the past. :P

The Great Pyramids of Egypt?

among the larger US skylines (those with at least 20 500+ footers), dallas has the most stagnant skyline.

ALL of its current 20 tallest buildings are at least 30 years now.

That’s not unusual at all most cities in the us had there tallest built in the 1970’s or wary 80’s. Including New York until 2014 and Chicago to this day.

Only a few cities have actually gotten new tallest buildings and only in the last ~5-7 years

^ you're not understanding me, i'm not talking about just dallas' tallest bulding, i'm talking about ALL of its 20 tallest buildings. buildingS. plural. with an "s".

all 20 of dallas' tallest buildings are now at least 30 years old.

Not quite true. #15, AMLI Fountain Place, is under construction (maybe close to T/O?), but more importantly, #18, Museum Tower, was built in 2012. However, every other building in the top 25 was built over 30 years ago.

The most anachronistic, I think, has to be Buffalo.

Mike Shriver

https://pro2-bar-s3-cdn-cf4.myportfo...12d4909ce1936f

https://pro2-bar-s3-cdn-cf4.myportfo...5bbd3c3233b53f

thanks for the correction. i didn't have "U/C" clicked on in the diagram i was looking at, and i don't know how i missed museum tower being completed in 2012 (oops).

in any event, that makes 18 of dallas' 20 tallest towers older than 30 years.

i believe houston would be next (out of america's largest skylines) on that metric with 17 of its 20 tallest now more than 30 years old.

for all of texas' white hot population growth over the past 3 decades, it sure hasn't translated into a lot of skyline change for its biggest cities. only austin has seen dramatic skyline change over the recent past, and much of that is due to the fact that austin didn't begin with much of a skyline at the start of this millennium.

But a hell of a lot of McMansions and power centers have been built! :tup:

You're talking about merely the #1 tallest building in a city being older.

Steely noted how the list of tallest 20 buildings in Dallas is almost identical to what it was at the end of the '80s (Museum Tower is the only new top-20 entry since 1988, and there's another under construction).

So while it may indeed be common for a given US city to have its #1 tallest building constructed 30+ years ago, Steely's point is more interesting and salient: it is unusual for a major US city with a relatively tall skyline in the 1980s to have stagnated so much when it comes to building taller towers in subsequent decades. Dallas is a laggard in this respect.

Yes, even my much-maligned city has 3 Top 10 buildings since 2000, and 8 of its top 25. Obviously, each subsequent tower makes it that much harder to crack the list, and Dallas was pretty tall to begin with.

However, it's also worth noting that while it makes more sense for more established cities (think Northeast, West Coast) to build up, many of these new Southern cities have tons of open land and parking lots to build on. I'm pretty sure Dallas has actually constructed quite a bit of mid-rise and shorter hi-rises in the last few years, particularly residential towers adjacent to downtown. For whatever reason, it hasn't gone tall lately. I know there are stale proposals in Dallas for supertall towers, and I don't think anything is stopping them from happening aside from simple economics. (unlike some FAA crunched cities, like mine)

Obviously, it seems like Austin has monopolized most of the noticeable skyline growth in Texas over the last couple of decades. I still prefer the more stately office buildings of the 70's/80's, but they are definitely getting stale at this point when the skylines aren't augmented by newer impact towers.

For LA's tallest 20, 7 will be have been built/u/c in last 5 years or so.
Not bad. 2 out of those are in Century City though.

I think these numbers will change dramatically in next 5 years.:cheers:
There's still 10 buildings over 30 stories u/c, even in a quieter stretch.

Where do Museum Tower and Amli Fountain Place rank?