# what are the cities that have the most unmatched skylines



## Panchiaonian (Oct 22, 2005)

There are a lot of cities around the world that have really unmatched skylines compared to its population, economic achievement....etc.

Some of them are really small or poor but with an amazing skyline, and some of them are huge, rich with decent economic power but with small skylines. 

So which cities around of the world do you think have fairly unmatched skylines.

In my opinion, in North America, Calgary and LA probably have the most unmatched skylines. Calgary is just a little city with only 1 million people but look at its skyline!! It's simpy amazing!! On the other hand, LA is such a huge city, but its skyline is somewhat a disappointment to me. 

In asia, I found almost all the richer nations have less impressive skylines, and the nations that have relatively low economic achievement have more impressive skylines. 
For example, Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Taipei, Kaohsiung, Pusan and Seoul all have smaller skylines than what they should have. However, on the other hand, Manila, BKK, KL, even Shanghai, and Beijing all have lower GDP per capita but have huge, impressive and modern skylines. 

In Europe, I think they rather keep their traditional and elegant lowrise or midrise architecture instead of being North Americanized. So by "North American standard," they all have smaller skylines than what they should have. 

What do you guys think?


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## gronier (Mar 2, 2005)

Los Angeles skyline should be bigger!!!!


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## polako (Apr 7, 2005)

It's all about demand and supply of land. Demand high, Supply high= lowrise; Demand high, Supply low=highrise.


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## Effer (Jun 9, 2005)

Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Not such a huge skyline, but yet impressive.


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## Faz90 (Aug 24, 2005)

Washington DC, Dubai, Phoenix and London.

DC and London should have more skyscrapers. DC is the capital of the world's greatest superpower, another Rome, yet it has no skyscrapers. London has 8 million people, and it's one of the world's most important cities, yet not many skyscrapers, but that will change. Phoenix has 1.4 million people, but very short buildings.

Dubai has many impressive skyscrapers that only a mega city would have.


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## ironchapman (Jun 2, 2005)

Faz90 said:


> Washington DC, Dubai, Phoenix and London.
> 
> DC and London should have more skyscrapers. DC is the capital of the world's greatest superpower, another Rome, yet it has no skyscrapers.


That's because of the height limit. No building can go above the Capitol's dome except for the Washington Monument.

It's kind of a traditional thing.


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## samsonyuen (Sep 23, 2003)

Gold Coast, a lot of "small" Brazilian cities, and Phoenix.


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## -Corey- (Jul 8, 2005)

Washington DC


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## I-275westcoastfl (Feb 15, 2005)

Tampa and St.Petersburg and Los Angeles, Phoenix, Dallas


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## polako (Apr 7, 2005)

DC should create a special area or zone in which it would allow the building of skyscrapers.


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## tritown (Aug 25, 2004)

Definitely Phoenix, Arizona. It's funny how that's what everyone else says, as well. Portland's skyline is pretty small for the city, as well. And San Jose. It almost seems like just a big suburb as far as the city layout and lack of skyline go.


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## nomarandlee (Sep 24, 2005)

I think all mentioned have been pretty good choices (other then when someone said Dallas which I think its skyline is on par with its stature). Phoenix has to take the cake in this category. It has become one of the USA bigger cities and it seriously looks like it could be a town of 100,000 people. And it is not like it has this amazing low rise architecture that is holding back or some tradition (like DC). 
You would think that such a recent and booming metro would really grow upwards but it has not at all. I am not sure what the explenation is.

Most European cities have pretty weak skylines but most have low rise architecture that is so great it is really a non-issue in my eyes.


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## Azn_chi_boi (Mar 11, 2005)

Yea, Phoenix is probably the America's 5th largest city today(if it surpass Philly, which we hope not)... look like a suburban town.


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## samsonyuen (Sep 23, 2003)

^But don't forget, the metro is nowhere near fifth, just the city size. Having said that Phoenix stands out as under-skyscrapered.


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## CrazyCanuck (Oct 9, 2004)

Niagara Falls, over-skyscrapered.


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## sebvill (Apr 13, 2005)

I like the fallowing skylines the most:
Latin America: Buenos Aires, Curitiba, Sta.Fe (Mexico DF).
North America:Miami, Atlanta, Seattle.
Europe: Barcelona, Marseille, St.Petersbourg
Africa: Cape Town
Middle East: Tel Aviv, Dubai
Asia: Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Manila
Australia: Gold Coast, Perth


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## Sideshow_Bob (Jan 14, 2005)

Isnt San Jose in California also lacking skyscrapers?


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## nomarandlee (Sep 24, 2005)

I'm from the U.S. and don't even know what San Jose's skyline looks like. I tend to think of it as a lot of office parks (like those in the movie Office Space). Maybe a few dozen 10-12 story glass scrapers. This could be a misconception though it might not be like that.


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## Faz90 (Aug 24, 2005)

I forgot Manila. It has an impressive skyline, yet 40% of Phillipines is in poverty.


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## MVBergy24 (Jun 18, 2005)

I believe Auckland is very impressive for a city under 400,000


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## PotatoGuy (May 10, 2005)

nomarandlee said:


> I'm from the U.S. and don't even know what San Jose's skyline looks like. I tend to think of it as a lot of office parks (like those in the movie Office Space). Maybe a few dozen 10-12 story glass scrapers. This could be a misconception though it might not be like that.


its not really that suburban.. its pretty cool really, a bit small but its cool:


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## gronier (Mar 2, 2005)

What about Benidorm (pop: 60.000)??


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## canada_habs2004 (Nov 3, 2004)

Niagara Falls, ON population: 75 000 people
The skyline in another 5 years..


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

Still Hong Kong for me. The city has only 7 million which is not even considered a megalopolis. But it's skyline and urbanity gives you a feel of a megacity!

Also San Francisco, Actually San Francisco itself is not even a large city but it has an impressive skyline and has world city status.


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## Minato ku (Aug 9, 2005)

Puteaux (France)
40 780


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## dave8721 (Aug 5, 2004)

How about Honolulu? 450 Highrises for a metro of under 1million. 


















On the negative side, how about Raleigh/Durham? A metro of 1.3 million but not much of a skyline to speak of.


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## Macca-GC (May 20, 2004)

MVBergy24 said:


> I believe Auckland is very impressive for a city under 400,000


Auckland is not a city of 400,000. You HAVE to take the metro figure, which is closer to 1.2 million. You see, if you only took city proper figure, Sydeny would have about 17,000 people. Melbourne would have about 30,000. Perth would be about 10,000. Adelaide would be less than 15,000. You see city proper figures are no where near accurate

The Gold Coast is pretty good. Pics taken by Locke



















and by JayT: Q1, the world's tallest residential building










All this for a population of just under 500,000 people.

237 completed 
20 under construction 
20 proposed 
18 approved


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## partybits (Apr 29, 2005)

Generally where you get a large amount of skylines for a city with a relatively small population, it's due to tourism.
Dubai, Niagara Falls, Benidorm, & Honolulu are examples mentioned in the thread so far.
Of course there are other factors as well other than population or tourism (ie economic growth) but those are probably the biggest factors.


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## PotatoGuy (May 10, 2005)

minato ku said:


> Puteaux (France)
> 40 780


wow that is impressive, especially since its like in Europe and all, cool...


btw.. that whole honolulu thing shudnt really count because its all hotels


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## rocky (Apr 20, 2005)

puteaux is part of the paris metro area..
niagara falls and benidorm are impressive.
paris and london and madrid and milan lack skyscrapers.

francfort germany is incredible for its size. Roterdam too.


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## Minato ku (Aug 9, 2005)

rocky said:


> *puteaux is part of the paris metro area*..
> niagara falls and benidorm are impressive.
> paris and london and madrid and milan lack skyscrapers.
> 
> francfort germany is incredible for its size. Roterdam too.


I see 
It was a jock


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## _00_deathscar (Mar 16, 2005)

Unmatched? I think you mean mismatched


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## SUNNI (Sep 20, 2002)

goldcoast has more highrises than many 1million+ cities


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## c0kelitr0 (Jul 6, 2005)

Faz90 said:


> I forgot Manila. It has an impressive skyline, yet 40% of Phillipines is in poverty.


Yes, Manila's skyline is mismatched with the Philippine's economy i agree. but 40% below poverty line is an outdated figure. That happened in 1997 right after the Asian financial crisis...but now, it's something like 20%


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## carlisle (Nov 10, 2005)

ironchapman said:


> That's because of the height limit. No building can go above the Capitol's dome except for the Washington Monument.
> 
> It's kind of a traditional thing.


Yeah it's not a simple case of city has skyscrapers = good skyline, no skyscrapers = bad skyline. Personally I think the overuse of plain square skyscrapers has made many North American cities look too alike from a distance. LA is a case in point. In the case of Washington and London, tall buildings have been restricted to protect a more significant skyline of historic buildings.
Personally, the most distinctive skyline I have ever seen is Liverpool, with the three graces, two cathedrals and St John's beacon, all buildings, the shapes of which are easily recognisable when reduced to a silhouette.
I actually have a mate who is doing his dissertation on Liverpool's tall building strategy and he is looking at skyscrapers which were proposed to be built in Liverpool, and none of them ever got built.


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## carlisle (Nov 10, 2005)

Toadman said:


> Auckland is not a city of 400,000. You HAVE to take the metro figure, which is closer to 1.2 million. You see, if you only took city proper figure, Sydeny would have about 17,000 people. Melbourne would have about 30,000. Perth would be about 10,000. Adelaide would be less than 15,000. You see city proper figures are no where near accurate


I agree, and have found myself thinking that many times, people on this forum are too obessed with quoting population figures. An even better example is London, the population of the city proper is about 7,000 I think, making it technically the smallest city in the UK.


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## MVBergy24 (Jun 18, 2005)

Toadman said:


> Auckland is not a city of 400,000. You HAVE to take the metro figure, which is closer to 1.2 million. You see, if you only took city proper figure, Sydeny would have about 17,000 people. Melbourne would have about 30,000. Perth would be about 10,000. Adelaide would be less than 15,000. You see city proper figures are no where near accurate.
> 
> 
> i get it.


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## ReddAlert (Nov 4, 2004)

Nashville
Miami
New Orleans


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## Faz90 (Aug 24, 2005)

carlisle said:


> I agree, and have found myself thinking that many times, people on this forum are too obessed with quoting population figures. An even better example is London, the population of the city proper is about 7,000 I think, making it technically the smallest city in the UK.


London is not just the square mile. Other "cities" like Westminster are also part of downtown London. Greater London is one city.


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## RAS85 (Nov 16, 2005)

I think NYC is the best example of a megacity with a megaskyline.


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## Ozcan (Feb 4, 2005)

Many Brazilian cities are underrated!

Belo Horizonte for example:


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## PotatoGuy (May 10, 2005)

oh wow, i had never even heard of that city and it's skyline is larger than most American cities, why do you guys, like asians, build so many highrises?


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## Rene Nunez (Mar 14, 2005)

PotatoGuy said:


> oh wow, i had never even heard of that city and it's skyline is larger than most American cities, why do you guys, like asians, build so many highrises?


It is much more efficient.Sprawl isnt very cost effective. Plus land is very precious in urban areas.


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## Ya Mar (Nov 15, 2005)

PotatoGuy said:


> wow that is impressive, especially since its like in Europe and all, cool...
> 
> 
> btw.. that whole honolulu thing shudnt really count because its all hotels




I thought it was pretty simple, most US and Canadian cites (around pop. of 1million+) that I have been too have much better skylines. But that is just my opinion.


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## normandb (Jan 11, 2005)

Faz90 said:


> I forgot Manila. It has an impressive skyline, yet 40% of Phillipines is in poverty.





cokelitro said:


> Yes, Manila's skyline is mismatched with the Philippine's economy i agree. but 40% below poverty line is an outdated figure. That happened in 1997 right after the Asian financial crisis...but now, it's something like 20%


In the entire philippines it is 20+% for the year 2004 while in manila only 6% of the metro population are poor.


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## Tasman (Feb 5, 2005)

MVBergy24 said:


> I believe Auckland is very impressive for a city under 400,000


About 1.2 million in its metro


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## mongozx (Sep 30, 2005)

Ozcan said:


> Many Brazilian cities are underrated!
> 
> Belo Horizonte for example:


Isn't this Sao Paulo?


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## sharpie20 (Nov 5, 2005)

japanese cities have the most unmatched skylines, all their cities are low rise, not a single building is above 300 m even for a country that is that adavnced and rich , some say that japan can't build skyscrapers because of earthquake problems, but i think that they've developed building techniques that can absorb the shocks. and when you think of japanese skylines, nothing


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## Iggui (May 17, 2005)

mongozx said:


> Isn't this Sao Paulo?


no, belo horizonte is brazil's 3rd biggest city, after sao paulo and rio de janeiro. it has nothing to do with either of those two cities (meaing it's not some suburb or part of some megalopolis). brazil has many cities with many highrises that would surprise a lot of people.


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## Azn_chi_boi (Mar 11, 2005)

Belo Horizonte is such an underrated city... I can't believe, I never heard of that city before.


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## Perth4life3 (Nov 14, 2004)

Brazils cities have a lot of high rises because a lot of people live in apartments !! much like china, most of the buildings are just white boxes.

none the less the sea of towers looks awesome.


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## SUPRARZPOWER (Apr 12, 2005)

Gold Coast - 500000 ppl worlds tallest apartment building and an army of 100m + buildings. Quite amazing really.


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## fierce_latino (Feb 21, 2005)

San Diego... for its size and economy its skyline is not as developed as it should be. Although theres a lot of contruction going on now it will still be less impressive than it could be because of the stupid 500ft height restiction. I believe SD's skyline could be more impressive than Miami.


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## easysurfer (Dec 12, 2004)

In a lot of European cities, skyscrapers aren't just built for the sake of it like in dubai or some other asian cities or even places like australia. These places have masses of land and so there is no real need for huge high-rises. Australia builds them to make up for their lack of historical culture and it would look quite bare without them. In asia the massive boom is mainly about economic egos. the kind of attitude that saya 'Oh look we have become richer so let's build skyscrapers and it might hide some of our social problems.' A lot of the smaller US cities don't need them but want to improve their image also. I don't agree with bulding any odd skyscraper for the sake of it, they need to be well thought out, have a worthwhile purpose and something enhance the landscape.


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## HD (Sep 17, 2003)

Panchiaonian said:


> In Europe, I think they rather keep their traditional and elegant lowrise or midrise architecture instead of being North Americanized. So by "North American standard," they all have smaller skylines than what they should have.



I don't think frankfurt has a smaller skyline than it should have- atleast if you consider the size and the location:










although I would say it's an exeption...


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## Wilko (Oct 18, 2004)

Sufers Paradise/Gold Coast Australia! Population of 500'000. Huge cost line of highrise.

Except for Adelaide, most Australian cities have large skylines for it's size in comparison to the United State. Sydney of 4.5million has more skyscrapers than all of California which is probably I would estimate to be around 35million. Melbourne at 3.8million has more actaul taller buildings than Sydney


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## XCRunner (Nov 19, 2005)

Phoenix definetly should have more skyscrapers, but remember its metro is only 3.2 million. A for cities that have seemingly an abundance of skyscrapers, you have Auckland, Minneapolis, and Niagra Falls, ON.



WANCH said:


> Still Hong Kong for me. The city has only 7 million which is not even considered a megalopolis. But it's skyline and urbanity gives you a feel of a megacity!
> 
> Also San Francisco, Actually San Francisco itself is not even a large city but it has an impressive skyline and has world city status.


Hong Kong's skyline seems on par. As for SF, the city itself may not be very large, but the metro is pretty big, so it has a good amount for its size.



Sideshow_Bob said:


> Isnt San Jose in California also lacking skyscrapers?


For it's size, yes, but when you consider all the factors, the answer is no. It may be the larget city in the Bay Area Metro, but San Francisco is unquestionably the center of that metro. San Jose is way, way further south at the very southern tip of SF Bay. In a way it's just like a really big suburb of SF (and Oakland). It's way out on the edge of the metro, so it has no need to build up.


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## hellrazor650 (May 3, 2008)

nomarandlee said:


> I'm from the U.S. and don't even know what San Jose's skyline looks like. I tend to think of it as a lot of office parks (like those in the movie Office Space). Maybe a few dozen 10-12 story glass scrapers. This could be a misconception though it might not be like that.


your actually pretty close. it has a couple hotels that are about 15-20 stories. and the rest is just houses and sprawl, however i predict massive skyscraper growth in San Jose's future because it is growing in population number but not in the size of land, so it will be forced upon the city to expand vertically.


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## ThatDarnSacramentan (Oct 26, 2008)

Sorry hellrazor650, but San Jose can't go higher. Since the middle of the city is a huge airport, the only thing that will happen is it will get denser with more of those 10-12 story buildings. Get mad at the FAA, not me.


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

XCRunner said:


> Phoenix definetly should have more skyscrapers, but remember its metro is only 3.2 million. A for cities that have seemingly an abundance of skyscrapers, you have Auckland, Minneapolis, and Niagra Falls, ON.
> 
> 
> Hong Kong's skyline seems on par. As for SF, the city itself may not be very large, but the metro is pretty big, so it has a good amount for its size.
> ...


True about SF's Metro. The fact that there's a debate if the BART is a subway system or suburban rail


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## isaidso (Mar 21, 2007)

Ozcan said:


> Many Brazilian cities are underrated!
> 
> Belo Horizonte for example:


I don't find Belo Horizonte under matched with its population. You'd expect a city in America with just under 6 million people to have a skyline like that.

Niagara Falls and Calgary have skylines far out of sync with the size of their populations. Outside America, I'd pick Dubai and Gold Coast.


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

I agree with the Dubai quote. It's not even a megacity


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## urbanjim (Feb 22, 2008)

For a city it's size (1,328,984-- seventh largest in the U.S.), San Antonio's skyline is certainly not impressive. Same goes for Memphis (672,277) and El Paso (598,590). As far as metro areas, the Inland Empire's skyline(Riverside/San Bernardino--4,081,371) is virtually non-existant. 

Some American skylines that appear overly-large in proportion to their city's size are located in suburban areas. Examples: Sunny Isles Beach, FL; Dunwoody, GA; Clayton, MO; Miami Beach, FL; Sandy Springs, GA.


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## Xusein (Sep 27, 2005)

Reviving threads this old should be officially against the TOS! :rant::lock:


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## Homer J. Simpson (Dec 2, 2003)

^Why is the topic not interesting or no longer relevant?

Or would we rather have new threads started instead?


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## Cymen (Jan 27, 2003)

Rotterdam has a pretty nice skyline for a city being only 600.000 people:









But nothing beats Benidorm:


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## Skybean (Jun 16, 2004)

isaidso said:


> I don't find Belo Horizonte under matched with its population. You'd expect a city in America with just under 6 million people to have a skyline like that.


I agree. Hong Kong has only 7 million people (probably less since this counts overseas population as well) with no "metro" population.

Anyways, China has at least 92 cities with over a million people. You only get to see a fraction of these cities on SSC.


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## philadweller (Oct 30, 2003)

I think LA has a huge skyline. Look at it from the south...Santa Monica to downtown is a big skyline. LA is much more than downtown.


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## philadweller (Oct 30, 2003)

Brazilian cities look homegenous. That is a very repetitive skyline in Belo Horizonte. It's big but unimaginative.


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## philadweller (Oct 30, 2003)

I agree with Phoenix but in my opinion it is a big suburb so why would it have a big skyline? London looks a lot smaller than it really is.
I also agree with San Antonio. The skyline is very underwhelming. Jersey City has a big skyline and so does Atlantic City for a city with a 50,000 population. Philadelphia looks like a 1.5 million city.


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## whitefordj (Feb 18, 2006)

calgary has 1 million but has the skyline of about 4 to five times a city that size.


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

philadweller said:


> I think LA has a huge skyline. Look at it from the south...Santa Monica to downtown is a big skyline. LA is much more than downtown.


I wouldn't consider LA's skyline to be huge but they are split into several clusters. You have the high-rise ones of Downtown, Century City, etc. and the mid-rise ones of Westwood, Santa Monica, Long Beach, etc.

Its not like Chicago where you have a long stretch of skyline from A to E. LA's is more like A, D, H, K you know what I mean


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## mhays (Sep 12, 2002)

urbanjim said:


> For a city it's size (1,328,984-- seventh largest in the U.S.), San Antonio's skyline is certainly not impressive. Same goes for Memphis (672,277) and El Paso (598,590). As far as metro areas, the Inland Empire's skyline(Riverside/San Bernardino--4,081,371) is virtually non-existant.
> 
> Some American skylines that appear overly-large in proportion to their city's size are located in suburban areas. Examples: Sunny Isles Beach, FL; Dunwoody, GA; Clayton, MO; Miami Beach, FL; Sandy Springs, GA.


This would make more sense if you understood the context of these numbers. San Antonio's metro isn't very big, and metro is what you measure a downtown against. Or more accurately, CSA. Riverside/SB is just a suburban wing of LA's CSA, sort of like San Jose is a wing of SF's CSA.


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## karim aboussir (Dec 4, 2006)

greater marrakech morocco has zero skyscrapers the tallest is 7 stories marrakech looks like a huge sprawling suburban area


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## jayo (Aug 30, 2007)

Skybean said:


> I agree. Hong Kong has only 7 million people (probably less since this counts overseas population as well) with no "metro" population.
> 
> Anyways, China has at least 92 cities with over a million people. You only get to see a fraction of these cities on SSC.


ONLY 7 million people?
Thats alot you know.EVEN by world standards.
I'm sorry,that was just got me so frustrated.


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## the spliff fairy (Oct 21, 2002)

Doha, Qatar
population 400,000


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## Hunt (Jan 4, 2008)

im surprised that no one mentioned dubai yet with a population of only 2.2 million.


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## Tubeman (Sep 12, 2002)

hellrazor650 said:


> your actually pretty close. it has a couple hotels that are about 15-20 stories. and the rest is just houses and sprawl, however i predict massive skyscraper growth in San Jose's future because it is growing in population number but not in the size of land, so it will be forced upon the city to expand vertically.


Please don't drag up 3 year old threads


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