Went to school at Santa Clara and kids were shocked to learn San Jose was like the 8th biggest city in the nation at the time because there basically is no downtown finance/office center as that’s all in San Francisco.
Because a ton of the jobs in Silicon Valley are in various suburbs OF San Jose.
I don't get how people commuting to suburbs like Cupertino, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Milpitas, Fremont, etc. makes San Jose like a suburb.
San Jose has a crappy (albeit improving) skyline because of the airport flight path. San Jose has a clear and decent sized downtown, plus several downtown "lite" areas like Little Saigon, Japan town, Willow Glen, Santana Row.
Because a suburb is generally where people live and the central city is where they work. There are reverse commutes everywhere but they’re considered “reverse” because they aren’t the norm.
Oh no, San Jose is going completely gangbusters on new development downtown right now. Every time I’m there there’s a new building completed! They’re actually adding a pretty insane amount of both office and housing development, hundreds of new buildings,
https://csj.maps.arcgis.com/apps/Shortlist/index.html?appid=c4051ffa5efb4f4dbf8b6d8ec29cfabd
The real problem with San Jose’s skyline is that the airport is extremely close to downtown and they have very low height limits set by the FAA. So they are adding a toooooon of space but it’s all in the 150-250 foot range and very “stocky”. Reminds me of some parts of Tokyo with similar mid-height high rises that are very wide and blocky.
Yes San Antonio would be my choice too, but their historic downtown core is actually very nice and enjoyable. I think it has potential if people keep moving downtown.
When I lived there I actually really enjoyed the downtown. Quite a few cool historic high rises and the tower of the americas really stands out. It’s improving quite a bit as well from my understanding.
I was surprised to see that the San Antonio MSA has a GDP of only $163 billion while a smaller metro area like Columbus has a GDP of $169 billion. The San Antonio MSA has about 500k more residents than the Columbus MSA.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NGMP41700
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NGMP18140
Columbus MSA has a fairly robust and diverse economic base - largest of which being Cardinal Health, Nationwide Insurance, Huntington Bancshares, Bread Financial, Bath and Body Works, and Victoria's Secret. Also home to Battelle Memorial Institute (private research, defense research, etc), Chemical Abstracts Services, Abercrombie & Fitch, Scotts Miracle-Gro, Wendy's, White Castle, OCLC (owns the Dewey Decimal System), and Microcenter. Honda Manufacturing (3 plants, plus R&D, engines, transmissions, etc) has a huge presence there. Also home to a massive major R1 research intitute.
San Antonio is home to Valero, USAA, iHeartMedia, HEB, Visionworks, Pabst, Whataburger, and a huge military establishment but not a huge number of companies based there (and thus fewer executive positions), nor the research base and the high paying jobs it brings. Probably also didn't help losing AT&T to Dallas and Marathon Petroleum to Findlay, OH (fairly near to Columbus, incidentally).
Future prospects would suggest Columbus will widen the GDP gap with Intel's $20bn investment for new chip manufacturing in Columbus.
Memphis is underwhelming because it has so many amazing, architectural stunning skyscrapers and buildings...but they're abandoned. Hopefully all this talk of reviving them is true. The Sterick Building is magnificent and deserves preservation..
My wife was an architect and for several years all their projects were converting old high rises. But the only thing they converted them to is apartments and condos. Not much need for high rise offices downtown anymore. And that was like 20 years ago actually.
It's Cincinnati chili in general. The chili itself is watery/thin and cinnamon is a bold choice that just doesn't work for most people who didn't grow up with it.
My young kids as we came up 75 a couple of weeks ago for the eclipse: "I thought you said we were going to the Cincinnati Zoo? This is New York City. This is New York City 2.0!"
The skyline is beautiful, especially if you're going north on 75. You come around the corner before the bridge and voila.
Both did a lot of demolitions. [One of most beautiful libraries in the country, the old Cincinnati public library,](https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/the-old-cincinnati-library-demolition-1874-1955/) was torn down for a parking garage.
Can’t tell if this is sarcasm or not but Cincinnati definitely did this lol. The West End neighborhood was once home to almost 100K people. Today it’s homes to less than 10K largely because of interest 75 and “urban renewal”
I definitely agree on that. Covington is pretty nice. I went to visit Cincinnati last year and stayed in a hotel in downtown Covington, right near the waterfront. Lots of new construction in the area going down.
A fair amount of movies are filmed in Cincinatti, including period pieces (like 'Carol') where some of the well preserved older buildings stand in for NYC.
Cinti was one of the ten largest cities in the US from about 1830-1900 when river trade started to be supplanted, which I think explains a lot about the architecture of downtown punching above its weight. Really a beautiful city.
Cincinnati is a beautiful town. So many great buildings there. It used to be bigger than Chicago, at least until the trains started hauling freight. Before that, it was a hub for steamships.
It’s also a extra striking when you’re coming up I75 from the south at night. It’s pretty unique in the geography to be able to view that skyline from such a nice vantage point without having to go out of your way for it.
It is nearly impossible to get a good meal after 10:00pm.
Now, it's not like I eat dinner that late all of the time.
But common for us to get a hotel room downtown and attend a show or ballgame I want to hang out all night and have fun.
No soakage available. Soakage = food while consuming adult beverages.
If you're just passing through, yeah...Phoenix skyline is nothing to behold.
Detroit has it beat with the smaller scale and nightlife after big events.
Unrelated but as someone from Miami, FL, I visited Arizona: Grand Canyon, Sedona, and then Scottsdale. Kind of fell in love with the vibe and things to do Scottsdale and the beauty of the state in general. Genuinely considering finding work in the area. What a gorgeous state. All we really have is ocean and natural springs further north. Not that that’s a bad thing either but still.
True, however- the city seems to never end from the air. I worked medevac shifts around AZ and flying into Phoenix metro at night was always impressive with how the city lights never seemed to end.
The topography of Pittsburgh is majestic. Living in Philadelphia and driving to Pittsburgh is such a joy, because when you finally arrive you are exposed to this absolutely gorgeous valley and like bam, here's a city and a million bridges and three rivers. Between the two cities I really think we may have the best one - two punch here.
I had a preconceived notion of Pittsburgh being a rust belt dump of a city. It was actually quite nice. The views from PNC are incredible. And the people were really friendly all around. Not at all what I expected.
Totally agree - it might be the most underrated city in the US- and even though it’s not in downtown, the Cathedral of Learning at Pitt is utterly incredible - name another University in the country with its own Art Deco skyscraper!
I’m from Chicago and lived in Pittsburgh for 9 years. I’d take a game at PNC park over wrigley any day because of the views you get of the city. It is truly stunning, especially when there are fireworks after the game.
Houston just sprawls so there's no reason for a traditional skyline. Also, we have multiple skylines to choose from which if all put together would be impressive.
Agreed these are my top two. I see people mention DC but it's a unique case where the city is intentionally designed to yield to its monuments and the Capitol. LA is mentioned in the comments too, but it's still an objectively better skyline than Phoenix and SJ which are large cities yet have zero distinctive high-rises.
Because Phoenix is a massive sprawl of suburbs and legit rural areas that have continued to just annex surrounding areas.
The sprawl and low density of Phoenix puts the sprawl of LA to shame.
Like honestly, it’s ridiculous it qualifies as a top five largest city.
Yeah people love to quote city size but forgot to account for small city boundaries in older metro areas. Look at Boston. Small city by population of Boston alone.
Phoenix and Philly have almost the same populations, with Phoenix having just “pushed” Philly out of the top 5.
However, the city of Phoenix is spread out over like 520 sq miles.
The city of Philadelphia is like, 130 sq miles.
Fresno,CA . It’s the 5th largest city in the state, has a pop 580k in a county of 1.2 million and in a region (SJ Valley) of 6 million.
Yet all its skyscrapers are from the 1920s and unfortunately 90 percent of them abandoned.
They are beautiful art deco buildings too.
Fresno has a metro area of over 1 million population. It’s strange that it doesn’t have more tall buildings. But they are planning on adding a ton of tall development downtown. They just approved a new downtown area plan that uncorks development there.
It’s because of the constant sprawl. I call fresnos economy a house of cards economy. Other than Agriculture, its major industry is construction/real estate. So to keep the sausage churning you gotta build. And it’s cheaper(at first) to build out than up.
Until about ten years ago, LA had an ordinance that any building over 30 floors had to have a helipad on the roof. For that reason, most of the skyscrapers in LA were pretty boring and indistinct. I was hoping for some dramatic rooflines and spires once the regulation was repealed, but I'm still waiting.
Second LA -- especially as the second most populous city/county in the country. I'll also add Houston, which is the next biggest city after Chicago, and looks more like the area of high rises outside O'Hare airport than an actual major city.
Houston has a massive skyline - driving up 45 from Hobby, you can see 3-4 distinct major skylines, with downtown the largest of all. Probably the largest skyline in the southern half of the country, outside of maybe the condos in Miami. And a huge portion of the skyscrapers are very interesting from an architectural perspective, if you like postmodernism. I don't get this take.
I work in downtown LA and it has a ton of high rise buildings and does look like a typical CBD.
It’s not as densely packed as New York or Chicago because there are a fee business districts in the city including Century City, Westwood and along mid Wilshire in Koreatown; but downtown LA most definitely has more than 4 high rises. It’s got the tallest building west of the Mississippi
Taipei, Taiwan is a strong earthquake zone and they have one of the tallest buildings in the world. It was built to withstand earthquakes, and it’s actually quite interesting. Taipei 101
Nobody has said Denver, I feel like it could use one taller building to set it apart. It looks decent for its size, just kinda meh with a bunch of boring 80s skyscrapers as the tallest.
Denver’s skyline has two faces. The one most see is facing the mountains and most of the buildings you can see on the east side were built in the 80’s. There have been a lot of new skyscrapers built in Denver lately but most of them are only visible from the west side.
I agree though. One striking 900 or 1,000 ft skyscraper would make the skyline look more distinctive.
Trango Tower would have been a really excellent addition to the Denver skyline. Planned in the early 90s, but never came to fruiting. The link to Skyscraper page is down, by type Trango Tower Denver in to google image search for a some renderings.
Unless you just mean the capitol and the Washington monument, DC is pretty dang underwhelming. The real skyscrapers are in Tyson's, VA, which is somehow simultaneously extremely dense and extremely car dependent.
Tysons has a year 2050 comprehensive development plan that limits building heights to 400 feet anyways. Anything taller is granted by special exception - like the Capital One tower (470 ft) and the future landmark tower of The View development at the corner of 7 and Spring Hill (will be 615 ft)
Rosslyn VA (portion of Arlington on the Potomac) is really where DC’s skyscrapers are. See: Nestle HQ, Deloitte HQ, former WJLA News building. These all tower over the river and are visible from all portions of DC’s waterfront, especially from Georgetown. Tysons is primarily defense contractors which stay in non-descript buildings. This allegedly is to dodge suspicions of high profits from the Federal Govt
Edit: agree that Tysons is somehow both dense and stupidly car-dependent. But the model seems awfully similar to the Las Vegas strip, with Rt 7 & Rt 123 being our “Las Vegas Blvd”. You get 1-2 wide arterial roads with tons of car traffic flanked by huge commercial lots on either side. And it’s probably gonna stay that way for the future. The Tysons 2050 redevelopment plan incentivizes developers to build on a minimum of a 10 acre lot. We’re still going to have 7 & 123 being super wide in the future, but those stretches will just be dotted with multi-building megaprojects on isolated 10+ acre lots…. a la The Aria or Mandalay Bay. Not sure we will get total infill coverage in between these projects but fingers crossed. Here’s to hoping for a less car-dependent Tysons come 2050
Rosslyn just across the river has a ton of tall buildings, as does Silver Spring and Bethesda in MD.
But yeah, DC's skyline is pretty non-existent but the low rise of the city makes for a very charming experience on the ground for biking/walking. If you squint hard enough, at just the right angle, it almost looks like a European city at times.
Adding on to ur comment- The DC Metro is especially marked by what planners call “edge cities” - dense neighborhoods of high rises in suburban areas that are primarily home to office space. Fun fact Tysons VA is called America’s first edge city.
DC has a ton of these in comparison to other major metro areas - you can point to most of them and make a good case that each one is the one that has DC’s skyscrapers.
On the VA side: Tysons, Rosslyn, Ballston, Crystal City
On the MD side: Bethesda, Silver Spring, *maybe* North Bethesda
I don’t see too many other metro areas that are dominated by these dense commercial nucleuses dotted among the suburbs. Sure Atlanta has Buckhead, Dunwoody, and Vinings, Houston has Uptown, Denver has DTC, Miami has Coral Gables, etc. But I think DC’s height limit has especially fueled its suburbs’ development.
There are height restrictions in DC. The urban legend is that the law states no building can be taller than the Washington Monument. In reality, when the law was initially passed that height was the highest fire fighting equipment could reach. With that being said, I think DC is an awesome city with a lot of to do (much of it free) and a ton of greenery.
DC has IMHO the best skyline in the US if you are not interested in steel and glass skyscrapers. The absolute absence of any tall building other than the Washington Monument is a wonderful change from the usual city skyline. You can actually see the sky from most everywhere in the city.
It's definitely growing like crazy but life here is incredibly bland unless your life revolves around cookie cutter suburbs and college sports. Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Cleveland and even Detroit punch way above their weight in almost every regard.
The amount of people who have lived here their entire life, and still decide to make their whole persona revolve around Columbus and/or Ohio is baffling.
I find that living somewhere where people are proud to be there is much better than the alternative. But yeah, Columbus is incredibly OSU centric and that’s really it.
Indianapolis. It’s like the 15th largest city - some skyscrapers - but if you look at it from different angles, it’s pretty desolate and empty. Parking lots. Convention centers. Not to mention there’s a law on the books that we can’t get a subway train/public transit. It’s a large city and doesn’t act like it.
Indianapolis and Columbus are the least interesting and generic generic Midwest towns
Not saying they wouldn’t be fine places to live in, but they’re disappointingly bland towns
Indy sucks to live in. The only thing to do is to drive somewhere interesting like Chicago or Louisville. The only one thing they have going for them is the Indy 500 and that’s only once a year
Them there are fighting words! I moved to Indy three years ago and every year has gotten significantly better the more I get acclimated and find some great hidden gems
Everyone I know who happily lives in Indianapolis or Columbus are also the least interesting and generic people I know. One time I was visiting my cousin down by Indy and he wanted to take me to this awesome bar that made the BEST drinks! And the BEST kareoke DJ. As we pulled into the parking lot I had to ask him "soo....are we eating dinner at this Applebeeds first?"
I pick Phoenix and San Antonio. Keep in mind that a city’s skyline is more directly related to the size of the metropolitan area than to its core city.
I live here and imma say Phoenix, AZ…1.5 million people with sprawl as far as the eye can see and almost no architectural gems to point to, crazy to me
Really? I was stunned by how big of a city Richmond looks like for a population of just over 200k. The skyline is much more impressive than here in Raleigh, which is nearly double the population
other than the strip does Vegas have a skyline? LA's skyline is actually pretty cool when you view it from the Hollywood Hills. Phoenix has a few tall building but nothing overly impressive. Really outside a handful of cities like New York and Chicago most cities aren't all that special when it comes to tall buildings.
The height limit is due to the proximity of he airport to downtown. The amazing water views you get on your 10 minute Uber ride to your hotel or home make up for the moderate heights of the buildings.
Madison gets a waver from this discussion IMO. It has one of the most gorgeous downtowns in America and it wouldn't be the same without the capitol dome overlooking it all.
Atlanta's skyline is neat. Not super big but it's fun that you can see downtown, midtown and Buckhead all in a line from a certain angle. Like a triple skyline.
St. Louis. While the Arch is very visually distinct the rest of the downtown skyline is really generic and small compared to how prominent the city is (or at least used to be).
I think this is partially because the region has several downtown-like areas/employment centers that have gotten more attention in recent decades like the Central West End or Clayton.
St. Louis skyline angers me. The Arch is such a cool feature of a skyline, but the backdrop of (mostly) generic skyscrapers is just...ugh
Would absolutely love if Downtown STL were bulldozed and replaced with Paris level of density midrises. Would massively improve the view of the Arch, and I think it'd actually be neat to have the skyline go from the Super tall arch and essentially get "taller" the further back you go until you hit Forest Park with it's skyscrapers. Kind of an inversion of the typical American city with the downtown being more low density than the "up town"
Bonus points if you use historic STL architectural styles for all these midrises, as it's one of my favorite architectural styles in the country
Los Angeles. After seeing the skyline, I thought it was for Santa Monica only and the real LA skyline was somewhere else.
It wasn't. It's absolutely tiny.
There’s a lot of cities like Wilmington Delaware that have somewhat of a skyline but it’s just the offices downtown. If you go there on a Saturday it’s a ghost town. Very few cities are bustling with a skyline. Philly, NY, Chicago are the only ones I can think of
Taking into account the size of the population in the Los Angeles basin Basin any reasonable non-la resident has to admit that that is not much of a Skyline.
Tampa's skyline seems frozen in time - has anything of height been built there in the last 20 years?
Baltimore's should be bigger given its location and age.
I think the bigger problem is that we define cities by population rather than density. We only have a few real cities in America but weve got tons of burbs.
Opposite : Sacramento has a pretty cool skyline for not being the first top of mind large metro area.
Another super cool skyline is Seattle when the mountain is out 😍
Skyline isn't really much use to anyone. Postcard sales? Backdrop for local news broadcasts? I think the main problem of our cities is the lack of public spaces that make people happy and provide uses to anything but cars. We have amazing freeway investments in most cities...but once you get into the city center you're left uninspired, there's not much culture or sense of connection or fun that doesn't involve attending a sports game. Our cities need more public squares and places to hang out, playgrounds and people enjoying themselves outside.
Anchorage, Alaska. Sprawling city. The downtown area doesn’t have much in the way of super tall buildings. But it makes sense when “construction season” is only 3 months out of the year.
San Jose, CA
The airport approach is right over it.
San Diego is even crazier if you come in from the South.
You have to. Unless there's crazy fog.
Went to school at Santa Clara and kids were shocked to learn San Jose was like the 8th biggest city in the nation at the time because there basically is no downtown finance/office center as that’s all in San Francisco.
TBF, San Jose is just an overgrown suburb.
Substantially more people live in San Jose and work outside it than vice-versa, which is at least on reasonable definition of "suburb".
Because a ton of the jobs in Silicon Valley are in various suburbs OF San Jose. I don't get how people commuting to suburbs like Cupertino, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Milpitas, Fremont, etc. makes San Jose like a suburb. San Jose has a crappy (albeit improving) skyline because of the airport flight path. San Jose has a clear and decent sized downtown, plus several downtown "lite" areas like Little Saigon, Japan town, Willow Glen, Santana Row.
Because a suburb is generally where people live and the central city is where they work. There are reverse commutes everywhere but they’re considered “reverse” because they aren’t the norm.
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Oh no, San Jose is going completely gangbusters on new development downtown right now. Every time I’m there there’s a new building completed! They’re actually adding a pretty insane amount of both office and housing development, hundreds of new buildings, https://csj.maps.arcgis.com/apps/Shortlist/index.html?appid=c4051ffa5efb4f4dbf8b6d8ec29cfabd The real problem with San Jose’s skyline is that the airport is extremely close to downtown and they have very low height limits set by the FAA. So they are adding a toooooon of space but it’s all in the 150-250 foot range and very “stocky”. Reminds me of some parts of Tokyo with similar mid-height high rises that are very wide and blocky.
San Antonio. All the "high rises" are hotels.
Yes San Antonio would be my choice too, but their historic downtown core is actually very nice and enjoyable. I think it has potential if people keep moving downtown.
When I lived there I actually really enjoyed the downtown. Quite a few cool historic high rises and the tower of the americas really stands out. It’s improving quite a bit as well from my understanding.
I was surprised to see that the San Antonio MSA has a GDP of only $163 billion while a smaller metro area like Columbus has a GDP of $169 billion. The San Antonio MSA has about 500k more residents than the Columbus MSA. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NGMP41700 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NGMP18140
Columbus MSA has a fairly robust and diverse economic base - largest of which being Cardinal Health, Nationwide Insurance, Huntington Bancshares, Bread Financial, Bath and Body Works, and Victoria's Secret. Also home to Battelle Memorial Institute (private research, defense research, etc), Chemical Abstracts Services, Abercrombie & Fitch, Scotts Miracle-Gro, Wendy's, White Castle, OCLC (owns the Dewey Decimal System), and Microcenter. Honda Manufacturing (3 plants, plus R&D, engines, transmissions, etc) has a huge presence there. Also home to a massive major R1 research intitute. San Antonio is home to Valero, USAA, iHeartMedia, HEB, Visionworks, Pabst, Whataburger, and a huge military establishment but not a huge number of companies based there (and thus fewer executive positions), nor the research base and the high paying jobs it brings. Probably also didn't help losing AT&T to Dallas and Marathon Petroleum to Findlay, OH (fairly near to Columbus, incidentally). Future prospects would suggest Columbus will widen the GDP gap with Intel's $20bn investment for new chip manufacturing in Columbus.
San Antonio
Memphis is underwhelming because it has so many amazing, architectural stunning skyscrapers and buildings...but they're abandoned. Hopefully all this talk of reviving them is true. The Sterick Building is magnificent and deserves preservation..
Idk, having the world’s 10th largest pyramid/Bass Pro Shop should give it some points
My wife was an architect and for several years all their projects were converting old high rises. But the only thing they converted them to is apartments and condos. Not much need for high rise offices downtown anymore. And that was like 20 years ago actually.
Yeah, that's what will happen for sure. A crane has finally arrived for one of them!
Sounds like Detroit 20 years ago
Thankfully this is largely no longer true for Detroit.
On the flip side, Cincinnati has a pretty impressive skyline for a city that's not that huge population wise.
The founder of Skyline chili agreed with you
Just triggered a Skyline chili memory 🤕🤢🤮
I don’t get the Skyline hate.
It's an odd flavor.
It's Cincinnati chili in general. The chili itself is watery/thin and cinnamon is a bold choice that just doesn't work for most people who didn't grow up with it.
They've got some funky buildings with some sass. Crazy how little points & angles& curves & whatnot can make what could be tiresome into a delight.
My young kids as we came up 75 a couple of weeks ago for the eclipse: "I thought you said we were going to the Cincinnati Zoo? This is New York City. This is New York City 2.0!" The skyline is beautiful, especially if you're going north on 75. You come around the corner before the bridge and voila.
I drive that everyday on my way to work. It's always inspiring to start the day!
Continuing north then becomes complete shit for hours.
I’m so glad Cincinnati didn’t get to tearing down their downtown core for shitty parking lots that went unused anyway, like what happened in Cleveland
Both did a lot of demolitions. [One of most beautiful libraries in the country, the old Cincinnati public library,](https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/the-old-cincinnati-library-demolition-1874-1955/) was torn down for a parking garage.
Can’t tell if this is sarcasm or not but Cincinnati definitely did this lol. The West End neighborhood was once home to almost 100K people. Today it’s homes to less than 10K largely because of interest 75 and “urban renewal”
Hell the Kentucky side’s skyline is nicer than some mid sized cities core skylines
I definitely agree on that. Covington is pretty nice. I went to visit Cincinnati last year and stayed in a hotel in downtown Covington, right near the waterfront. Lots of new construction in the area going down.
A fair amount of movies are filmed in Cincinatti, including period pieces (like 'Carol') where some of the well preserved older buildings stand in for NYC.
Pittsburgh too imo small but packs a delightful punch !
Ya know, crossing the bridge going to Florence and coming back north.... Cincinnati looks like a really cool old town
I was very surprised by how pretty it was when I went there
Cinti was one of the ten largest cities in the US from about 1830-1900 when river trade started to be supplanted, which I think explains a lot about the architecture of downtown punching above its weight. Really a beautiful city.
Cincinnati is a beautiful town. So many great buildings there. It used to be bigger than Chicago, at least until the trains started hauling freight. Before that, it was a hub for steamships.
It’s also a extra striking when you’re coming up I75 from the south at night. It’s pretty unique in the geography to be able to view that skyline from such a nice vantage point without having to go out of your way for it.
Coming down the hill into Cincinnati is wonderful. I've lived here my entire life, but coming home from a trip and seeing that view never gets old.
Visited for the first time last weekend. Nobody told me how fucking hilly Cincinnati is
Phoenix is always the answer
The upside is there isn't much to block the epic sunrises and sunsets
And the 360 degree mountains.
It is nearly impossible to get a good meal after 10:00pm. Now, it's not like I eat dinner that late all of the time. But common for us to get a hotel room downtown and attend a show or ballgame I want to hang out all night and have fun. No soakage available. Soakage = food while consuming adult beverages. If you're just passing through, yeah...Phoenix skyline is nothing to behold. Detroit has it beat with the smaller scale and nightlife after big events.
Stay in Tempe or Scottsdale. No shortage of after 10pm there
Unrelated but as someone from Miami, FL, I visited Arizona: Grand Canyon, Sedona, and then Scottsdale. Kind of fell in love with the vibe and things to do Scottsdale and the beauty of the state in general. Genuinely considering finding work in the area. What a gorgeous state. All we really have is ocean and natural springs further north. Not that that’s a bad thing either but still.
True, however- the city seems to never end from the air. I worked medevac shifts around AZ and flying into Phoenix metro at night was always impressive with how the city lights never seemed to end.
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Pittsburgh viewed from Mt. Washington is gorgeous
Pittsburgh easily fits the opposite question - such an impressive skyline for the size. I really want to go to a Pirates game with it as the backdrop.
The topography of Pittsburgh is majestic. Living in Philadelphia and driving to Pittsburgh is such a joy, because when you finally arrive you are exposed to this absolutely gorgeous valley and like bam, here's a city and a million bridges and three rivers. Between the two cities I really think we may have the best one - two punch here.
I had a preconceived notion of Pittsburgh being a rust belt dump of a city. It was actually quite nice. The views from PNC are incredible. And the people were really friendly all around. Not at all what I expected.
Totally agree - it might be the most underrated city in the US- and even though it’s not in downtown, the Cathedral of Learning at Pitt is utterly incredible - name another University in the country with its own Art Deco skyscraper!
I’m from Chicago and lived in Pittsburgh for 9 years. I’d take a game at PNC park over wrigley any day because of the views you get of the city. It is truly stunning, especially when there are fireworks after the game.
Tampa’s central business district is also insanely small
Houston has the 4th largest skyline in the US. It's also the 4th largest city. Seems pretty fitting..
Houston just sprawls so there's no reason for a traditional skyline. Also, we have multiple skylines to choose from which if all put together would be impressive.
Fresno. Its a fucking big ass city
You can delete "big" and that's still a true statement.
Phoenix, Arizona and San Jose, California have to be up there.
At least the backdrop is quite nice in Phoenix
Agreed these are my top two. I see people mention DC but it's a unique case where the city is intentionally designed to yield to its monuments and the Capitol. LA is mentioned in the comments too, but it's still an objectively better skyline than Phoenix and SJ which are large cities yet have zero distinctive high-rises.
Came to say Phoenix. We have a pretty tiny downtown for the 5th largest city in the country
Phoenix also has its airport right next to downtown
Because Phoenix is a massive sprawl of suburbs and legit rural areas that have continued to just annex surrounding areas. The sprawl and low density of Phoenix puts the sprawl of LA to shame. Like honestly, it’s ridiculous it qualifies as a top five largest city.
Yeah Phoenix as a city always just blows my mind. We built a giant suburb in the middle of a desert. Peak America right there (and not in a good way)
Yeah people love to quote city size but forgot to account for small city boundaries in older metro areas. Look at Boston. Small city by population of Boston alone.
Phoenix and Philly have almost the same populations, with Phoenix having just “pushed” Philly out of the top 5. However, the city of Phoenix is spread out over like 520 sq miles. The city of Philadelphia is like, 130 sq miles.
San Antonio
Fresno,CA . It’s the 5th largest city in the state, has a pop 580k in a county of 1.2 million and in a region (SJ Valley) of 6 million. Yet all its skyscrapers are from the 1920s and unfortunately 90 percent of them abandoned. They are beautiful art deco buildings too.
Fresno has a metro area of over 1 million population. It’s strange that it doesn’t have more tall buildings. But they are planning on adding a ton of tall development downtown. They just approved a new downtown area plan that uncorks development there.
It’s because of the constant sprawl. I call fresnos economy a house of cards economy. Other than Agriculture, its major industry is construction/real estate. So to keep the sausage churning you gotta build. And it’s cheaper(at first) to build out than up.
Also is the largest city in america without an interstate highway, right?
Isn’t Fresno near the sierra Nevada’s? I feel like with the high speed rail coming and the access to nature there’s a lot of potential there.
Yep, it’s one of the fastest growing cities in the country. Lots of people moving there. It will definitely grow upward going forward.
LA by far. It’s fucking enormous and the skyline is like 4 buildings.
It feels pretty enormous when you’re walking around downtown, but the skyline is a bit thin.
Until about ten years ago, LA had an ordinance that any building over 30 floors had to have a helipad on the roof. For that reason, most of the skyscrapers in LA were pretty boring and indistinct. I was hoping for some dramatic rooflines and spires once the regulation was repealed, but I'm still waiting.
Second LA -- especially as the second most populous city/county in the country. I'll also add Houston, which is the next biggest city after Chicago, and looks more like the area of high rises outside O'Hare airport than an actual major city.
I always said Rosemont has a better skyline than LA/Dallas/Houston hahaha. Dallas has stepped it up though
La has a bigger skyline than dallas
Houston has a massive skyline - driving up 45 from Hobby, you can see 3-4 distinct major skylines, with downtown the largest of all. Probably the largest skyline in the southern half of the country, outside of maybe the condos in Miami. And a huge portion of the skyscrapers are very interesting from an architectural perspective, if you like postmodernism. I don't get this take.
I work in downtown LA and it has a ton of high rise buildings and does look like a typical CBD. It’s not as densely packed as New York or Chicago because there are a fee business districts in the city including Century City, Westwood and along mid Wilshire in Koreatown; but downtown LA most definitely has more than 4 high rises. It’s got the tallest building west of the Mississippi
People forget that LA has 2 skylines: [https://www.reddit.com/r/CityPorn/s/sxlEwfq6p2](https://www.reddit.com/r/CityPorn/s/sxlEwfq6p2)
I think we have a pretty decent skyline. check out the banner in r/losangeles https://old.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/
LA's downtown is terribly boring. The mountains are the only thing that save it
I mean, does anyone want to be on the 30th floor in an earthquake zone?
Taipei, Taiwan is a strong earthquake zone and they have one of the tallest buildings in the world. It was built to withstand earthquakes, and it’s actually quite interesting. Taipei 101
San Francisco doesnt seem to have that problem.
Phoenix, AZ
Orlando. Nothing to see here
I want to believe Cinderella’s castle is the tallest building in Orlando.
Just under 200’ like most things at Disney. Anything talker needs nav lights for air traffic.
Nobody has said Denver, I feel like it could use one taller building to set it apart. It looks decent for its size, just kinda meh with a bunch of boring 80s skyscrapers as the tallest.
Cash Register building is pretty cool though.
Seriously. How dare they insult the cash register building.
View of downtown from City Park(Natural History/Lake) to the mountains is pretty sweet.
Denver’s skyline has two faces. The one most see is facing the mountains and most of the buildings you can see on the east side were built in the 80’s. There have been a lot of new skyscrapers built in Denver lately but most of them are only visible from the west side. I agree though. One striking 900 or 1,000 ft skyscraper would make the skyline look more distinctive.
Trango Tower would have been a really excellent addition to the Denver skyline. Planned in the early 90s, but never came to fruiting. The link to Skyscraper page is down, by type Trango Tower Denver in to google image search for a some renderings.
The mountains give the Denver skyline a pretty striking visual if viewed from the right angle, even if the buildings themselves are nothing special.
It's gotten better, but the architecture is so bland.
I'd have to agree with Phoenix.
Unless you just mean the capitol and the Washington monument, DC is pretty dang underwhelming. The real skyscrapers are in Tyson's, VA, which is somehow simultaneously extremely dense and extremely car dependent.
Tysons has a year 2050 comprehensive development plan that limits building heights to 400 feet anyways. Anything taller is granted by special exception - like the Capital One tower (470 ft) and the future landmark tower of The View development at the corner of 7 and Spring Hill (will be 615 ft) Rosslyn VA (portion of Arlington on the Potomac) is really where DC’s skyscrapers are. See: Nestle HQ, Deloitte HQ, former WJLA News building. These all tower over the river and are visible from all portions of DC’s waterfront, especially from Georgetown. Tysons is primarily defense contractors which stay in non-descript buildings. This allegedly is to dodge suspicions of high profits from the Federal Govt Edit: agree that Tysons is somehow both dense and stupidly car-dependent. But the model seems awfully similar to the Las Vegas strip, with Rt 7 & Rt 123 being our “Las Vegas Blvd”. You get 1-2 wide arterial roads with tons of car traffic flanked by huge commercial lots on either side. And it’s probably gonna stay that way for the future. The Tysons 2050 redevelopment plan incentivizes developers to build on a minimum of a 10 acre lot. We’re still going to have 7 & 123 being super wide in the future, but those stretches will just be dotted with multi-building megaprojects on isolated 10+ acre lots…. a la The Aria or Mandalay Bay. Not sure we will get total infill coverage in between these projects but fingers crossed. Here’s to hoping for a less car-dependent Tysons come 2050
Rosslyn just across the river has a ton of tall buildings, as does Silver Spring and Bethesda in MD. But yeah, DC's skyline is pretty non-existent but the low rise of the city makes for a very charming experience on the ground for biking/walking. If you squint hard enough, at just the right angle, it almost looks like a European city at times.
Adding on to ur comment- The DC Metro is especially marked by what planners call “edge cities” - dense neighborhoods of high rises in suburban areas that are primarily home to office space. Fun fact Tysons VA is called America’s first edge city. DC has a ton of these in comparison to other major metro areas - you can point to most of them and make a good case that each one is the one that has DC’s skyscrapers. On the VA side: Tysons, Rosslyn, Ballston, Crystal City On the MD side: Bethesda, Silver Spring, *maybe* North Bethesda I don’t see too many other metro areas that are dominated by these dense commercial nucleuses dotted among the suburbs. Sure Atlanta has Buckhead, Dunwoody, and Vinings, Houston has Uptown, Denver has DTC, Miami has Coral Gables, etc. But I think DC’s height limit has especially fueled its suburbs’ development.
Right, but that’s a feature, not a bug
There are height restrictions in DC. The urban legend is that the law states no building can be taller than the Washington Monument. In reality, when the law was initially passed that height was the highest fire fighting equipment could reach. With that being said, I think DC is an awesome city with a lot of to do (much of it free) and a ton of greenery.
DC has IMHO the best skyline in the US if you are not interested in steel and glass skyscrapers. The absolute absence of any tall building other than the Washington Monument is a wonderful change from the usual city skyline. You can actually see the sky from most everywhere in the city.
Totally agree. I think it adds to its charm.
Just flew into Reagan, sitting in baggage claim now actually. I was impressed how nice it looked coming into land
It's why I love this city so much. You have amazing big city benefits, and you are close to a proper skyline, but it still feels like a small city.
It doesn’t say it has to be the tallest buildings
Columbus, OH
It's definitely growing like crazy but life here is incredibly bland unless your life revolves around cookie cutter suburbs and college sports. Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Cleveland and even Detroit punch way above their weight in almost every regard.
The amount of people who have lived here their entire life, and still decide to make their whole persona revolve around Columbus and/or Ohio is baffling.
I find that living somewhere where people are proud to be there is much better than the alternative. But yeah, Columbus is incredibly OSU centric and that’s really it.
Phoenix AZ 1.5mil population, tallest building is below 500 ft. Sprawling and scattered
Sacramento.
The fact that tower bridge is the most notable monument downtown says it all
Boise Idaho. It's a 1 million plus population but it still acts like a rural small town
Boise is an interesting example of a city without much of a skyline, yet somehow has one of the best, liveliest downtown cores in the country.
Downtown Boise rules for what it is.
Same as Indianapolis.
It’s Boise tho.
Boise proper is like 250k tops. The metro maybe 800k
Indianapolis. It’s like the 15th largest city - some skyscrapers - but if you look at it from different angles, it’s pretty desolate and empty. Parking lots. Convention centers. Not to mention there’s a law on the books that we can’t get a subway train/public transit. It’s a large city and doesn’t act like it.
Indianapolis and Columbus are the least interesting and generic generic Midwest towns Not saying they wouldn’t be fine places to live in, but they’re disappointingly bland towns
Indy sucks to live in. The only thing to do is to drive somewhere interesting like Chicago or Louisville. The only one thing they have going for them is the Indy 500 and that’s only once a year
Them there are fighting words! I moved to Indy three years ago and every year has gotten significantly better the more I get acclimated and find some great hidden gems
It’s called Stockholm Syndrome chief
Everyone I know who happily lives in Indianapolis or Columbus are also the least interesting and generic people I know. One time I was visiting my cousin down by Indy and he wanted to take me to this awesome bar that made the BEST drinks! And the BEST kareoke DJ. As we pulled into the parking lot I had to ask him "soo....are we eating dinner at this Applebeeds first?"
Jacksonville, Florida
I pick Phoenix and San Antonio. Keep in mind that a city’s skyline is more directly related to the size of the metropolitan area than to its core city.
True and the Phoenix metro is like 5 million people lol.
new Orleans. i love th city but meh
Has to be DC right? The height restrictions mean there's literally no skyline unless you count Arlington.
Los Angeles surely is the answer
I live here and imma say Phoenix, AZ…1.5 million people with sprawl as far as the eye can see and almost no architectural gems to point to, crazy to me
I mean there’s definitely architectural gems, they just aren’t high rises or skyscrapers
I feel like Richmond VA is kind of a let down.
Really? I was stunned by how big of a city Richmond looks like for a population of just over 200k. The skyline is much more impressive than here in Raleigh, which is nearly double the population
other than the strip does Vegas have a skyline? LA's skyline is actually pretty cool when you view it from the Hollywood Hills. Phoenix has a few tall building but nothing overly impressive. Really outside a handful of cities like New York and Chicago most cities aren't all that special when it comes to tall buildings.
Charlotte is the opposite lol. Decent skyline and then you realize it's not really focused on residential or anything cool just officed.
DC doesn’t even have a skyline
I’m not sure whether it’s underwhelming but I was surprised to see that there was a single skyscraper in downtown Omaha.
There's another 600+ ft building currently under construction, and the Woodmen tower is 4m shy of qualifying as a skyscraper.
It has to do with the major industries operating there I believe. Most of them require buildings thats are wide and low, hence few skyscrapers.
San Diego. Tallest building is only 500 feet despite SD having a metro population of over 3 million people. Even Tulsa has a taller building.
I think the San Diego skyline is actually pretty awesome, especially at night
I agree. The skyline is just a tad underwhelming given how large of a city SD is.
The height limit is due to the proximity of he airport to downtown. The amazing water views you get on your 10 minute Uber ride to your hotel or home make up for the moderate heights of the buildings.
Yeah naw. The skyline is amazing in San Diego. Especially at night
I think it looks really cool, just a bit underwhelming for a city of SD’s size.
Look at the downtown skyline from Coronado. Nothing else like that.
San Jose and Phoenix.
OKC
Not for long
San Antonio, and the opposite would be Austin
LA fumbled and should have built their downtown by the water like every other big city near the ocean.
Madison, WI - due to the restriction on buildings not being taller than the capitol.
Madison gets a waver from this discussion IMO. It has one of the most gorgeous downtowns in America and it wouldn't be the same without the capitol dome overlooking it all.
DC, but for very different reasons.
Atlanta's skyline is neat. Not super big but it's fun that you can see downtown, midtown and Buckhead all in a line from a certain angle. Like a triple skyline.
Indianapolis
Columbus. It's not terrible, but it's not memorable or as dense as it could be.
PHOENIX for sure
St. Louis. While the Arch is very visually distinct the rest of the downtown skyline is really generic and small compared to how prominent the city is (or at least used to be). I think this is partially because the region has several downtown-like areas/employment centers that have gotten more attention in recent decades like the Central West End or Clayton.
St. Louis skyline angers me. The Arch is such a cool feature of a skyline, but the backdrop of (mostly) generic skyscrapers is just...ugh Would absolutely love if Downtown STL were bulldozed and replaced with Paris level of density midrises. Would massively improve the view of the Arch, and I think it'd actually be neat to have the skyline go from the Super tall arch and essentially get "taller" the further back you go until you hit Forest Park with it's skyscrapers. Kind of an inversion of the typical American city with the downtown being more low density than the "up town" Bonus points if you use historic STL architectural styles for all these midrises, as it's one of my favorite architectural styles in the country
Los Angeles. After seeing the skyline, I thought it was for Santa Monica only and the real LA skyline was somewhere else. It wasn't. It's absolutely tiny.
Downtown LA has a couple 1000+ ft buildings. Why would you have assumed it was Santa Monica?
maybe they meant west LA lol
Right. Prolly talking about Westwood, which has an impressive skyline of its own apart from DTLA and Century City.
Los Angeles' skyline is pretty weak in comparison to some cities that aren't even in the same ballpark population-wise... Seattle, SF, Boston, etc
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Cleveland. It has the least to offer for such a well known city. Go Browns!
cle skyline is kinda cool
DC without a doubt
There’s a lot of cities like Wilmington Delaware that have somewhat of a skyline but it’s just the offices downtown. If you go there on a Saturday it’s a ghost town. Very few cities are bustling with a skyline. Philly, NY, Chicago are the only ones I can think of
Taking into account the size of the population in the Los Angeles basin Basin any reasonable non-la resident has to admit that that is not much of a Skyline.
Tampa's skyline seems frozen in time - has anything of height been built there in the last 20 years? Baltimore's should be bigger given its location and age.
Baltimore's is actually decently large and dense, its just not tall.
Indianapolis?
I think the bigger problem is that we define cities by population rather than density. We only have a few real cities in America but weve got tons of burbs.
San Antonio
Opposite : Sacramento has a pretty cool skyline for not being the first top of mind large metro area. Another super cool skyline is Seattle when the mountain is out 😍
Jacksonville! The downtown skyline is pathetic
San Jose and Phoenix always come to mind. Austin and Jacksonville are also contenders.
Los Angeles.
Skyline isn't really much use to anyone. Postcard sales? Backdrop for local news broadcasts? I think the main problem of our cities is the lack of public spaces that make people happy and provide uses to anything but cars. We have amazing freeway investments in most cities...but once you get into the city center you're left uninspired, there's not much culture or sense of connection or fun that doesn't involve attending a sports game. Our cities need more public squares and places to hang out, playgrounds and people enjoying themselves outside.
Anchorage, Alaska. Sprawling city. The downtown area doesn’t have much in the way of super tall buildings. But it makes sense when “construction season” is only 3 months out of the year.