Quote:
Originally Posted by DZH22
Why does it need it "really bad"? It has 1 building over 200m and the current plateau is mostly around 400'.
Why does Austin NEED it over cities such as: Dallas, Miami, Boston, Toronto, Montreal, Pittsburgh, Vancouver, Minneapolis, Denver, Calgary, Seattle.... (and of course, Philadelphia and San Francisco until theirs are built) Always makes me think  when people proclaim that these small cities suddenly NEED a supertall. How about starting with a second building that actually has a top floor over 500'? |
Pittsburgh, Denver, and Vancouver aren't really bigger. The rest of your list definitely are larger, but those are in the same tier or set of tiers of metro as Austin:
Denver: 2.7 million
Vancouver: 2.4 million
Pittsburgh: 2.4 million
Austin: 1.9 million
Calgary, in fact, is
smaller and in the tier beneath Austin with cities like Tucson, Birmingham, and Raleigh.
Raleigh: 1.2 million
Calgary: 1.2 million
Birmingham: 1.1 million
Tucson: 1.0 million
The other cities you listed fall into three other separate tiers:
DFW: 6.8 million
Toronto: 6.1 million
Philadelphia: 6.0 million
Miami: 5.8 million
Boston: 4.6 million
San Francisco: 4.5 million
Montreal: 3.8 million
Seattle: 3.6 million
Minneapolis: 3.5 million
If any of those cities "needs" a supertall, it's Dallas, and they're almost certain to get one proposed within the next couple of years. Toronto technically already has one, Philadelphia has one under construction, Miami will never have one because of height restrictions. Boston doesn't have the right development atmosphere. San Fran, of course, is getting one. Montreal's skyline couldn't support one currently, but a supertall would not look out of place in either Seattle or Minneapolis.
Denver could easily have a supertall fit in because of it's preexisting buildings, but Pittsburgh and Austin I am not sure about. Vancouver has height restrictions that are hard to work around, so it will likely never.
As for Calgary, they've got an impressive skyline for their size for sure, but I'm not sure that a city of that size has the necessary market forces to support taller structures. That actually probably applies to Pittsburgh as well, though not because the metro is small. Austin and Denver certainly have strong enough economies that it's within the realm of possibility, though certainly not likely by any stretch of the imagination.