OK, time for my annual data analysis and self-reaffirming need to see how Chicago's skyline and amalgamation of high rises (including all of our new ones and others that are under construction) stack up against the rest of the US (excluding NYC - no offense to our NYC brethren, but NYC is simply in its own world, so this is the battle for 2nd Place!). This year, I first decided to look at 46 large US cities (other than NYC) with significant high-rise populations and break up the US into the following 5 regions: 1 - States of Georgia and Florida; 2 - State of Texas; 3 - State of California; 4 - West of Mississippi River (other than CA and TX) and 5 - East of Mississippi River (other than NYC, Chicago, FL and GA). See notes at end of post as to which cities I included in each region. In each region, I then took buildings in each city that were over 500' and assigned one point for each building in the 500-599' range, two points for each building in the 600-699' range, and so on, so a building in the 1400-1499' range (hint, there is only 1!) gets 10 points. My reference was the CTBUH and Emporis databases and I excluded "proposed" buildings, but included those labelled, "under construction". And the results are:
1st Place: Chicago! With 253 points and 122 buildings
2nd Place: GA and FL- with 160 points and 87 buildings
3rd Place: East of Mississippi: with 156 points and 87 buildings
4th Place: Texas: with 130 points and 68 buildings
5th Place: West of Mississippi: with 126 points and 76 buildings
6th Place: California: with 105 points and 53 buildings
Heck, even throw in Toronto, with 183 points and 98 buildings - and it would be larger than all of the other regions in the US (other than NYC and Chicago) but still a distant second place to Chicago.
Some other take-aways from the data:
1. I couldn't believe the delta between Chicago and the rest of the regions - both in terms of points and total # of buildings over 500'. I thought it would be much closer...
2. There were only 3 regions (FL/GA, TX and E. Mississippi) that had more buildings than Chicago in any 100' height range and each of those was in the 700-799' range (and W. Mississippi had the same # as Chicago).
3. 6 of the 13 (or nearly half of the) buildings in the US (other than NYC) >1000' are in Chicago
4. Chicago still has more points than the entire US region west of the Mississippi (including CA but excluding TX) and almost the same # of buildings >500' (122 v 129)
5. Toronto has a lot of proposed and under construction buildings - so will be curious to see how much ground it gains vs Chicago over the next 5 years
6. I defer to our NYC readers to determine NYC's points (think it would be > 1,000 total points using my method?)
Notes re Region break out:
Georgia and Florida: includes Atlanta, Miami, Tampa and Jacksonville
Texas: includes Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin and San Antonio
California: includes L.A., San Fran, San Diego and Sacramento
E. of Mississippi: includes Boston, Hartford, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Baltimore, Charlotte, Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Louisville, Nashville, Memphis, Birmingham, Indianapolis, Detroit, Milwaukee, New Orleans
W. of Mississippi: includes Seattle, Portland, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Albuquerque, Salt Lake City, Denver, St. Louis, Kansas City, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Omaha, Des Moines, Minneapolis, St. Paul
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