a skyscraper in a small city?

[JManc]

He didn't delete it, a moderator did.

[JoePDX]

Population now..75,000,, but 54,000 when the two 18 story buildings shown were complete. Actually one was built in 1972 and the other in the early 1930s The dowtown is literally built on a steep hill with two main streets horizontal with the river below an steep bisecting streets going up the hill. The effect is to make the taller buildings even look taller. But I guess 18-20 stories isn't really a skyscraper..lol

[M II A II R II K]

Mecca would also count, for the new building it's size.

[JoePDX]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

Mecca would also count, for the new building it's size.

True, it does have 1,700,000 people though. Wow didnt know it was that big. I guess you are right though..still a huge building for a city that size. How about we go the other way? Most underwhelming skyline for a city its size? Id say Portland with 2.2 million metro is pretty underwhelming. But its not really the Portland thing to do to build tall skyscrapers. Interferes with our views of Mt Hood,,lol There are some other taller building to the south of this picture, but its all pretty much mid rise type. Not too tall. Kind of a boxy skyline. Nothing to punctuate it. Hey wait the sky is crystal clear in this pic. Has this been altered? LOL

[Thurifer]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

Lake Charles, Louisiana has as a sad looking downtown but it has this huge glass box which is way disproportionate to its size



I think this kind of thing is pretty common and may have to do with certain industries past and present, particularly oil and gas or banking. So many of the buildings in these examples look like they are from the 1980s too which may be telling of something

compare this to a college town or military town which could be twice as large in population but has virtually no buildings taller than 4 or 5 stories.

Lake Charles has a taller building L'Auberge du Lac which is a casino hotel. It's 26 stories tall, whereas that building you see is 22. So technically it has two high-rise buildings.

[LeeWilson]

As always, when one of these threads shows up, I need to post this:
Shimukappu (pop 1,140)

[whiteford]

north battleford Saskatchewan has three towers. two twin tower apartment buildings that are 12 floors each with roof top stairway house that extends it yet another floor in height. it is just a little square box at the top of each but they make it as tall as 13 floors so it counts. also there is a 10 story RBC bank tower, which is actually a beautiful little office tower. it is slightly taller than the other two towers and it looks very modern. here is a link to battlefords wonderful little skyline. remember this, north battleford has only 11,000 people in the entire area, so this kind of skyline is for this size of city metro is truly unheard of anywhere in the entire world. considering the population, this (((town)) is a real winner and can only get better.

here is a truly telling skyline pano of north battleford.

http://www.panoramio.com/photo_explo...sc&user=190577

[LeeWilson]

Originally Posted by whiteford

so this kind of skyline is for this size of city metro is truly unheard of anywhere in the entire world.

I wish the best for North Battleford, but this comment is a little presumptuous. It seems comparable to Yellowknife, for example.

[Nantais]

Originally Posted by whiteford

remember this, north battleford has only 11,000 people in the entire area, so this kind of skyline is for this size of city metro is truly unheard of anywhere in the entire world. considering the population, this (((town)) is a real winner and can only get better.[/url]

I could show you tons of little French towns, not much more populated than North Battleford, but which have more than two or three 12-floors towers.

Here are some examples :


Tulle (15,000 in the city, 30,000 in the metro area) with its 24 floors skyscraper (along with some 10 or 12 floors tower blocks scattered in the city) :

http://fr.structurae.de/files/photos.../tu_ca1_st.jpg

Mourenx (7,406 in the city, 15,852 in the metro area) :

http://mourenx9.free.fr/Cartes_Posta...Mourenx_10.jpg

http://mourenx9.free.fr/Cartes_Posta...format/C_1.JPG

http://mourenx9.free.fr/Cartes_Posta...majorettes.JPG

Vitry-le-François (13,686 in the city, 34,121 in the metro area), with a lot of 12-15 floors tower blocks :

http://www.survoldefrance.fr/photos/highdef/5/5302.jpg

And there are a lot of other examples.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by Thurifer

Lake Charles has a taller building L'Auberge du Lac which is a casino hotel. It's 26 stories tall, whereas that building you see is 22. So technically it has two high-rise buildings.

Typically a 22 story office is taller than a 26 story hotel. No idea in this case.

As for Portland, I'd put its skyline above Phoenix's, which is the larger city by far at four million plus.

[scalziand]

Before the housing bubble popped, Seymour, CT, a former industrial town of 16,500 had a proposal for a 20 story condo tower on an old industrial parcel. It didn't pan out, and the current tallest buildings are 6-7 stories tall.

[Cirrus]

OK, OK. We get it. There are lots of examples of tall buildings in small cities. Can we stop now? OP wasn't asking for examples; he was asking for a discussion about the merits of using a tall building as economic development.

Unfortunately, I think it's very unlikely. Gimmicks aren't usually successful when the fundamentals are a problem.

[Jonboy1983]

That's a fair enough post. I do have an example of such a building in Lancaster, PA (population of roughly 55k) that they built along with the construction of the convention center that they built while converting an abandoned department store into part of the overall project.

They wanted to build a convention center as a way to try and bring more people and businesses (in the form of conventions) back into Central PA. In addition to the convention center, they built an 18-story Marriott to lure the conventioners. Prior to that, they built a minor league ballpark to host a minor league franchise as another way to bring more people back to Lancaster. I don't know exactly how things are going for Lancaster since then; I moved out and into the greater Philly region during the construction phase. The ballpark has been operational for quite a number of years tho, since at least 2005 or 2006 at least.

To go with what some of the posters were saying before tho, you don't build large buildings to help spur economic development. More like, you build larger buildings as a result of economic development -- as such that demand exists for one to be built. Good socio-economic activity will lead to demand for business growth, which may lead to demand for dense development (i.e. high-rises)...

[mhays]

A convention hotel seems like the only common way for a subsidized highrise to spur economic development. Even then, it's a big bet that the hotel will draw enough net additional spending (and tax dollars) to make it worthwhile. And even if it aids in a net addition of spending, it might still hurt other hotels, which is why they sometimes oppose convention hotel subsidies.

[Rico Rommheim]

Originally Posted by Nantais

I could show you tons of little French towns, not much more populated than North Battleford, but which have more than two or three 12-floors towers.

Here are some examples :


Tulle (15,000 in the city, 30,000 in the metro area) with its 24 floors skyscraper (along with some 10 or 12 floors tower blocks scattered in the city) :

http://fr.structurae.de/files/photos.../tu_ca1_st.jpg

Mourenx (7,406 in the city, 15,852 in the metro area) :

http://mourenx9.free.fr/Cartes_Posta...Mourenx_10.jpg

http://mourenx9.free.fr/Cartes_Posta...format/C_1.JPG

http://mourenx9.free.fr/Cartes_Posta...majorettes.JPG

Vitry-le-François (13,686 in the city, 34,121 in the metro area), with a lot of 12-15 floors tower blocks :

http://www.survoldefrance.fr/photos/highdef/5/5302.jpg

And there are a lot of other examples.

Holy Molly! I had no idea that some small French cities were like that. Was there a government-led effort to build such cities after the war or something?

[Prahaboheme]

Altamonte Springs, FL, pop 42,000:

[Nantais]

Originally Posted by Rico Rommheim

Holy Molly! I had no idea that some small French cities were like that. Was there a government-led effort to build such cities after the war or something?

Mourenx is a special case : the city, in southwestern France, was built ex-nihilo between 1957 and 1961 to house the workers of a gas field nearby.
But it's not uncommon to see tower blocks (from 12 to 16 floors, sometimes higher) in small towns of only 10,000 or 20,000 people in France. Tons of housing projects were built in the 1960's-1970's, not only in the suburbs of the bigger cities like Paris or Lyon, but in every cities, even the smallest. At that time there was a severe housing shortage in France : the population was increasing fastly because of the baby-boom and immigration while a lot of the housing stock was old and squalid (without talking about the destructions caused by the war). Then building large housing projects was the quickest and cheapest solution.

[whiteford]

Originally Posted by LeeWilson

I wish the best for North Battleford, but this comment is a little presumptuous. It seems comparable to Yellowknife, for example.

Yellowknife is the winner here hands down. that city itself is the very reason that i said "almost". most of the french towns don't count imo because in reality there is more people living within 100km of most of them towns than live within 100kms of the city of Calgary. as for north battleford or Yellowknife? when i say 11000 people, that is for an area including 100kms radius of the city. you can drive for 100kms in any given direction of north battleford and the biggest town will be the town of bigger and it has a population of 3000.

[SHOFEAR]

Originally Posted by whiteford

Yellowknife is the winner here hands down. that city itself is the very reason that i said "almost". most of the french towns don't count imo because in reality there is more people living within 100km of most of them towns than live within 100kms of the city of Calgary. as for north battleford or Yellowknife? when i say 11000 people, that is for an area including 100kms radius of the city. you can drive for 100kms in any given direction of north battleford and the biggest town will be the town of bigger and it has a population of 3000.

Ever seen Hay River? It's a fraction of the size of yellowknife and as a 17 story building. And like you said about yellowknife...it is located in the middle of nowhere. very bizzare.



Yellowknife is closer to 20,000.

[Nantais]

Originally Posted by whiteford

most of the french towns don't count imo because in reality there is more people living within 100km of most of them towns than live within 100kms of the city of Calgary.

So what ? The examples I posted are not part of any kind of bigger metro area. They are all located in rural regions with low population density for european standards (and knowing there is about 1,5 million people living in Calgary metro area, what you wrote is probably wrong).
It's about the smallest cities with highrises, not about the most isolated city with highrise.