Toronto Still North American King of The Cranes

[DCReid]

Toronto understandable, but LA 2nd and Calgary 3rd?

https://www.bisnow.com/toronto/news/...-cranes-103835

[Zapatan]

Not that Toronto isn't booming but is this actually true? How does Toronto have more than NYC?

How do these cities have more than NYC? (Assuming the article is correct)

Coming up a distant second was Los Angeles with 47 cranes, followed by Calgary (37), Seattle (36), San Francisco (33) and Chicago (29).

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by Zapatan

Not that Toronto isn't booming but is this actually true? How does Toronto have more than NYC?

How do these cities have more than NYC? (Assuming the article is correct)

The Crane index is very flawed

Every time it comes out the Local Phoenix forum has baffled by how they determine the counts because its always wrong.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by Zapatan

Not that Toronto isn't booming but is this actually true? How does Toronto have more than NYC?

How do these cities have more than NYC? (Assuming the article is correct)

Originally Posted by Obadno

The Crane index is very flawed

The Crane Index is flawed although in terms of 100m+ buildings under construction Toronto was #1 for most (if not all) of the last decade. The SSP database currently has New York City with 69 100m+ buildings under construction vs 97 in the City of Toronto. Where New York leads is in super tall construction. Toronto only has 2 such buildings under construction vs 7 in New York and the ones in New York are considerably taller.

Toronto grows as it does because it's one of the fastest growing cities (only Dallas and London are comparable) in the Western world and the economic engine of Canada. It's experiencing one of those extremely rare mega-booms some cities go through. New York had their big boom 1880-1930 while Los Angeles had theirs 1950-1990. Most cities never have one. A similar thing is happening in Melbourne. Toronto and Melbourne will likely emerge as vastly bigger and more influential cities over the medium/long term.

[Metro-One]

Well Metro Vancouver is at 201 cranes as of February this year. Most of those in Vancouver proper and Burnaby.

[dc_denizen]

I think the issue is that New York doesn’t use tower cranes , which is what this tracks

I mean some years Portland Oregon has ranked higher in the crane count than nyc!!

I think New York completes like 30000 per year of multifamily, nearly all (relatively) high rises

This would be better tracked with a concrete-construction completions index

[Crawford]

There's no way to track tower cranes, because there's no central database.

And different cities have different rules for crane use, so it isn't really indicative of relative highrise construction. You could use a crane for a five-floor building, and not use a crane for a 40-floor building.

But there's no doubt that Toronto is somewhere near the top for North America. LA and Calgary almost certainly aren't near the top.

[suburbanite]

New York's numbers are never reliable on these lists. SSP's database isn't comprehensive in tracking its buildings either.

I have little doubt that Toronto would have been at least second in this regard for awhile. Tons of little suburban developments like this, 30km away from Downtown and next to farmland, would have had 2-3 cranes when going up.

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by DCReid

Toronto understandable, but LA 2nd and Calgary 3rd?

https://www.bisnow.com/toronto/news/...-cranes-103835

Why is LA 2nd so unfathomable? Los Angeles tied w/ Seattle last year for most cranes in the US, and was 2nd in tower cranes another year.

Just google search "tower cranes Koreatown," "tower cranes Hollywood," "tower cranes downtown LA" and "tower cranes Century City." Those areas are all within LA proper.

[Razor]

i'm a little surprised myself by Calgary considering the huge downturn that they are experiencing, but good for that city if this is the case..Perhaps these projects were already underway when their downturn started a few years back.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

Why is LA 2nd so unfathomable?

Because LA doesn't have many highrise projects. The implication behind "tower cranes" is highrise construction, no? How many 20 floor+ towers are currently u/c in the LA region? Not a ton, I don't think.

Toronto is obviously somewhere near the top because there are a crapload of regional 20 floor+ towers u/c.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Toronto is obviously somewhere near the top because there are a crapload of regional 20 floor+ towers u/c.

No, that's not it at all. Why is it so inconceivable/difficult for you to accept that Toronto comes out on top here? It says a lot that you need to grab at straws and argue that it's 'somewhere near the top'. I realize this is an affront to your world view but it's getting a little ridiculous.

[suburbanite]

Originally Posted by isaidso

No, that's not it at all. Why is it so inconceivable/difficult for you to accept that Toronto comes out on top here? It says a lot that you need to grab at straws and argue that it's 'somewhere near the top'.

Toronto doesn't have a bunch of regional towers? The classification of "somewhere near the top" is because we will never have a truly accurate count to compare.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by isaidso

No, that's not it at all. Why is it so inconceivable/difficult for you to accept that Toronto comes out on top here?

Because there's zero data to support your wild contention?

Why would someone say that any city is, without question, ranked some certain way, when there's no underlying data? That's pretty much crazed homerism.

I'm pretty certain Toronto is in the top 3. Only NYC and DF would likely be in the same ballpark. But, no, I cannot rank cities unequivocally absent underlying data, especially when we don't even have underlying business rules. What, exactly are we ranking? 100 ft.+? 400 ft.+? U/C? Permitted? How can I say, with any certainty, that a city has an exact ranking, without any agreed-upon definitions?

If you want to provide business rules, we can try and formulate a best-guess. I think we can get close to reality. But right now we have nothing.

[dc_denizen]

New York has 27 cranes according to this list, but I count a least 70 buildings under construction over 20 stories in the city.

With 35,000 multifamily deliveries in NYC last year, and say the average high rise at 350 units, that's 100 buildings..if you need 1.5 cranes per building, NYC should come in at around 150 cranes.

what gives?

the (tower) crane count is one of the most flawed indices of market activity the world has ever seen.

[Darkoshvilli]

And still nowhere near Chicago in terms of architecture and height.