Cities having seen the most skyline change since 2000

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by isaidso

Fantastic view from that airplane window. It's a gargantuan skyline but it gets elevated even more with Manhattan being an island and the existence of Central Park. They help frame it all. From the SSP database, did I include all the areas I needed for the New York MSA? I listed what I entered below the table.


100m Buildings

Built: 913
U/C: 51
Proposed: 74


New York: New york, Fort Lee, Guttenberg, Jersey City, New Rochelle, Newark, North Bergen, West New York, Franklin Township, White Plains

Yeah, I don't think there are many high rises outside of that list of cities. The tallest building in Hoboken just misses the 100m cutoff. Harrison, NJ, might also have tall towers in the future, but I don't think the city has any high-rises yet.

[Crawford]

For 100m+ buildings, you'll also likely have New Brunswick, Hackensack, Morristown, Edgewater, Yonkers, Pearl River, Mt. Vernon, Stamford, Stony Brook, East Meadow, Long Branch.

[Steely Dan]

While nowhere close to the same scale as NYC's, Chicago's skyline has now sprawled out far enough that it is really difficult to grab it all in one shot, unless you're in a plane.

Here's a somewhat recen-ish shot of the classic NW angle looking down Milwaukee Ave.

It's a totally awesome shot, but it entirely misses the newer South loop skyline that I posted on the previous page, which lies beyond the Sears Tower clump in the image below.



Source: https://chicagoyimby.com/2024/04/chi...arch-2024.html

[mhays]

Regarding the Seattle discussion... As a Seattle resident, I think we get quite a bit of attention on SSP, including for skyline and general highrise growth. That's despite having only one real skyline-changing addition in 34 years.

[Steely Dan]

^ yeah, Seattle has gone in big on skyline bulk, but not so much new peaks.

Stupid height limits.

Still very pretty though, no doubt helped by the lovely natural surroundings

[chris08876]

Bellevue, Washington; has seen some big changes, in the last 10 years for that matter. A satellite of Seattle.

Early 2022.



Morning Fog @ Bellevue Washington, USA by Feng Wei, on Flickr


Dawn @ Bellevue Washington, USA by Feng Wei, on Flickr


May 2023




Bellevue Seattle Pano by Mike Reid, on Flickr


Not to mention in a location that is to die for!



Bellevue Sunset DJI X7 50mm by Mike Reid, on Flickr

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Yeah, I don't think there are many high rises outside of that list of cities. The tallest building in Hoboken just misses the 100m cutoff. Harrison, NJ, might also have tall towers in the future, but I don't think the city has any high-rises yet.

Thanks very much. It can get tricky compiling data for metropolitan areas as there are often a ton of separate places one wouldn't think to add or have never heard of.

Originally Posted by Crawford

For 100m+ buildings, you'll also likely have New Brunswick, Hackensack, Morristown, Edgewater, Yonkers, Pearl River, Mt. Vernon, Stamford, Stony Brook, East Meadow, Long Branch.

OK, thanks. I'll have a look at them when I get a block of free time.

Edit: only 1 building made the cut: Park Tower in Stamford is 119m. Everything else is below 100m. That said, Stamford isn't part of New York MSA. It is part of the more expansive CSA though.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by isaidso

It can get tricky compiling data for metropolitan areas as there are often a ton of separate places one wouldn't think to add or have never heard of.

Chicagoland makes it easy for you.

There are only 2 buildings in the entire MSA outside of the City of Chicago that rise above 100m.

One in Oak Brook Terrace, IL and the other in Itasca, IL.


Generally speaking, there aren't too many buildings over 100m in the Midwest that lie outside of the municipal limits of central cities. Chicagoland has the two mentioned above, Metro Detroit has a handful in Southfield, MI, and then there's the infamous "second downtown" of Clayton, MO with several of them just outside of St. Louis. I can't think of any others off the top of my head.

[mhays]

Bellevue's clearly one of the stars here, particularly if you narrow things to non-core districts and true mixed use vs. mostly housing. Its eight tallest (some dates are sketchy):

600': 2023
600': 2025 (currently around 450')
450': 2016
450': 2016
450': 2008
450': 2008
450': 2005
420': 2005

Before that things topped out a little over 300.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Generally speaking, there aren't too many buildings over 100m in the Midwest that lie outside of the municipal limits of central cities. Chicagoland has the two mentioned above, Metro Detroit has a handful in Southfield, MI, and then there's the infamous "second downtown" of Clayton, MO with several of them just outside of St. Louis. I can't think of any others off the top of my head.

I don't think it's really that common outside of the Midwest either, tbh. Southfield and Clayton seem like nationwide anomalies. In the case of Southfield, those were all towers that theoretically should have been built in downtown Detroit, and they were built at the expense of expanding Detroit's skyline. Whereas Jersey City, LIC, and downtown Brooklyn are just direct extensions of development patterns emanating from Manhattan.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I don't think it's really that common outside of the Midwest either, tbh.

True, the New York and Miami MSAs are probably the outliers here, as most US metros do not have loads of different non-central city municipalities with 100+m buildings.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I don't think it's really that common outside of the Midwest either, tbh. Southfield and Clayton seem like nationwide anomalies. In the case of Southfield, those were all towers that theoretically should have been built in downtown Detroit, and they were built at the expense of expanding Detroit's skyline. Whereas Jersey City, LIC, and downtown Brooklyn are just direct extensions of development patterns emanating from Manhattan.

Right. JC, Downtown BK, LIC and the like are just extensions of a core. You have a NIMBY core with little available land, and one or two subway stops away, you have a less NIMBY geography with lots of available land. LIC or JC are to Manhattan as the South/West Loop are to the Loop.

Southfield (and Troy, Oakbrook and the like) has its equivalents in the NYC area, with office park areas like Piscataway. Those areas never developed true skylines. The suburban skylines in the NY area tend to be in older, established cities enveloped by sprawl (White Plains, Stamford, Norwalk, New Rochelle, Hackensack, New Brunswick, etc.). Outside of the Northeast, it's less common to have these really old cities surrounded by sprawl that became suburban office centers for professionals mostly living in sprawl. It never happened in places like Pontiac, Joliet, etc.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Outside of the Northeast, it's less common to have these really old cities surrounded by sprawl that became suburban office centers for professionals mostly living in sprawl. It never happened in places like Pontiac, Joliet, etc.

Yeah, the only place in Chicagoland where you have an older traditionally urban suburban town center with highrise office buildings is in downtown Evanston, but:

A. Evanston's tallest buildings top out at around 80m.
B. Downtown Evanston isn't really surrounded by post-war sprawl. It's textbook pre-war inner-ring.
C. Evanston's total office market is only ~2M SF, a relative drop in the bucket.


To point C above, the overwhelming majority of commercial office space in suburban Chicago is either in office park garbage strung along expressway corridors, or a few sprawl-a-thon centers like Schaumburg, often anchored by a giant mall, where you have office towers sitting like individual chess pieces in the middle of gigantic parking lots. The vast, VAST majority of it is less than 10 floors, with only those two exceptionally tall towers over 100m already pointed out, and they are tall purely for developer vanity reasons, not any market forces of traditional urbanism (ie. scarce/valuable land in a prime location = taller buildings).

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Southfield (and Troy, Oakbrook and the like) has its equivalents in the NYC area, with office park areas like Piscataway. Those areas never developed true skylines. The suburban skylines in the NY area tend to be in older, established cities enveloped by sprawl (White Plains, Stamford, Norwalk, New Rochelle, Hackensack, New Brunswick, etc.). Outside of the Northeast, it's less common to have these really old cities surrounded by sprawl that became suburban office centers for professionals mostly living in sprawl. It never happened in places like Pontiac, Joliet, etc.

Southfield is unique for building such tall buildings in a thoroughly car oriented suburb. There were four +100m tall towers built in Southfield in the 1970s and 1980s. I don't think there are any towers that tall in NY metro outside of the five boroughs, White Plains, Newark, Hudson County, and Fort Lee. All of these places either are Manhattan, border Manhattan or are connected to Manhattan by rail transit. Southfield never had rail transit at all, nor was there ever an organic downtown, so the towers are located kind of haphazard and surrounded by huge parking lots. It's a pretty bizarre landscape for such tall buildings if you think about it.

[Comrade]

Unfortunately, while Salt Lake has seen some growth, to an outsider, the skyline probably looks pretty much unchanged since 2000. There just hasn't been a signature tower to come in that stands out or enough taller towers to dramatically shift the skyline overall.

Maybe in another 24 years, though!

Salt Lake around 2000:



Salt Lake in 2023 or 2024 (similar angle):

[Wigs]

Top 50 tallest completed buildings in Canada by city (note: some buildings are twins)

Toronto:31+ CN Tower
Calgary: 7
Montreal: 4
Burnaby (Vancouver suburb): 3
Edmonton: 2
Vancouver: 2
Mississauga (Toronto suburb): 2

Top 5 Tallest under construction in Canada:

1. Sky Tower at Pinnacle One Yonge
Toronto, 345 m (1,132 ft)--2026
2. The One, Toronto, 328 m (1,076 ft)--2025
3. Forma West Tower l
Toronto, 308 m (1010 ft)--2027
4. Concord Sky, Toronto, 300 m (985 ft)--2026
5. M3 at M City
Mississauga, 260 m (853 ft)--2024

source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List...ings_in_Canada

**Fellow Canadian forumers, please feel free to correct any errors**

[chris08876]

Another city to add to this list is Atlanta. Seen some big changes since 2000.

I don't believe necessarily in height but with respect to infill. There has been a ton that has risen in the last 20 years.



Credit: Zero Gravity Drone Services


Georgia Institute of Technology and Midtown Atlanta, Georgia Aerial View by David Oppenheimer, on Flickr


Buckhead Village in Atlanta, Georgia Skyline Aerial View by David Oppenheimer, on Flickr


Credit: The_Punisher_of_Wives


Credit: Atlanta, USA 🇺🇸 - by drone [4K]

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I don't think it's really that common outside of the Midwest either, tbh. Southfield and Clayton seem like nationwide anomalies. In the case of Southfield, those were all towers that theoretically should have been built in downtown Detroit, and they were built at the expense of expanding Detroit's skyline. Whereas Jersey City, LIC, and downtown Brooklyn are just direct extensions of development patterns emanating from Manhattan.

Seems fairly common in the sunbelt and west. Just as an FY Clayton, MO is on the edge/inside of the pre-war urban core and its downtown is surrounded by pre-war housing and apartments.

Was just in Tempe - which heretofore I thought of as a college town - which has this intensifying office building, institutional and residential tower/lowrise overlay served by streetcar and light rail.

[Centropolis]

Photos by me (the newer office cluster sort of wraps around the mountain):

[Toasty Joe]

Originally Posted by nito

Before 2000, London had just two towers >150m.

It has added a further 37 >150m towers, with a further 50 >150m towers either u/c, approved or proposed.

The largest cluster is that in Canary Wharf, followed by the City and Southwark (where the tallest, the Shard is located), but there are other emerging clusters in Vauxhall and North Acton.

Originally Posted by isaidso

Surprisingly, Toronto CMA only had 14 towers > 150m in 2000.

It has added a further 93 > 150m, with a further 471 >150m towers either U/C, Approved, or Proposed.

Originally Posted by craigs

Los Angeles:

23 ≥ 150m/492 ft. in 2000
37 ≥ 150m/492 ft. today*

*Includes three projects ≥ 150m/492 ft. that are topped out but not yet complete; excludes two projects ≥ 150m/492 ft. that are under construction but not yet topped out.

Chicago:

79 ≥ 150m/492 ft. in 2000
139 ≥ 150m/492 ft. today*
60 ≥ 150m added 2000-today

*excludes one project ≥ 150m/492 ft. that is under construction but not yet vertical

As others have mentioned Chicago's growth is hard to capture due to angles and the fact we already had most of our skyline defining giants from the 70s onward, and a lot of the 150m+ towers have been relative infill