Seattle's exist to:

1. Make sure city views don't get in the way of city views, particularly from hillsides.

2. Make sure developers don't profit from the removal of height limits.

It's strange that we have giant development fees, and allowing extra floors could fund a lot more affordable housing for example. But screw them, because what if someone makes money and what if a rich person can only see a mile instead of two miles.

I'm being slightly flippant here. Rezones go through EISes, and there would be impacts to sewers and so on.

In Vancouver, it's more view cones from various places south of downtown looking towards the mountains, rather than an absolute height limit. Theoretically there's a few sites where you can go above 200m, but there are already office towers occupying those sites

One of the view cones... you get the idea:

https://images.dailyhive.com/2020041...ancouver-8.jpg

Looks like the answer to this question is Toronto

https://www.equipmentjournal.com/con...rane-activity/

In major cities across North America, Toronto continues to lead the pack in tower crane activity.

According to the Rider Levett Bucknall Crane Index for North America, Toronto accounts for 43 per cent of active tower cranes, followed by Los Angles, Seattle and Washington D.C., which all account for 9 per cent each of the total count.

The index, which is published by the real estate consulting firm biannually, tracks the number of operating tower cranes in 14 major cities across the United States and Canada.

Toronto has recorded a 68 per cent increase in its tower crane count since the previous index, adding 84 more cranes.

Tower crane activity has literally nothing to do with overall building activity. You can build 40-floor towers without tower cranes.

There's a 450 ft. hotel tower wrapping up construction next to my workplace. No crane was ever used.

The Crane Index Is wrong , the phoenix forum has a list of complaints with the crane count being wrong lol

Did they forget to track NYC??

Anyways, the other problem with counting cranes is that it doesn't take into account construction time. A 50 storey building may take several years to complete while a 12 storey one may take less than a year.

Many cities might not be getting tracked as well, speaking for Kitchener-Waterloo where I used to live, the SSP database is missing several buildings.

Waterloo is missing

Recently completed (and not listed in any form)
255 Sunview, 258B Sunview, 258A Sunview, 246 Lester, 256 Lester, 131 University W

U/C
239A & 239B Albert, Elora House, 460A & 460B Columbia W

Proposed
Westmount Place (down to just 1 residential tower), 316 King N, 508 Beechwood, 635 Erb St W, 12 Westhill, Kraus Flooring redevelopment (preliminary proposal of 8 high rises)

So it currently has 10 highrises U/C. Development is shifting to sister city Kitchener. SSP's database has it at 8 highrises U/C and 16 proposed which is good for a small city but at a glance, at least a few projects are missing.

That “crane index” only tracks two Canadian cities, Toronto and Calgary, and only 14 cities in total in North America.

Last time I looked metro Van has well over 150 cranes in operation. Not to mention Montreal’s current boom.

Any stat on that article is worthless due to how many major cities with high crane activity it omits.

Anyways, most US cities don't build as many highrises as Canadian cities, but still build a lot of midrise infill, as well as lowrise apartment and townhouse infill. Seattle grew by 2.1% per year between the 2010 and 2020 census for example, compared to 1.7% per year for Old Toronto between the 2011 and 2016 census.

One of these lists claimed that Portland had more cranes than New York City . At a time when there were 10 highrises under construction in downtown Brooklyn , none with tower cranes

There is nothing under construction presently in Toronto. All those lists are wrong. The only city building anything is Tyson's Corner.

The amount of low rise building in NYC is astounding and probably falls under the radar. I'm pretty sure nobody is touching the Big Apple when you factor in low rises, but who knows.

The point about population growth is good. I might guess that new shell and core construction is at least half about growth and less than half replacement/improvement.

That said, some cities focus their growth into buildings large enough to need cranes and others don't as much.

And the specifics matter. NYC uses smaller building-mounted cranes to fit tighter spaces (I'm curious about the criteria and will look more). Places like Dallas build a lot of low buildings set back from the street, so often there's room for forklifts and the occasional mobile crane to replace the need for a tower crane.

The list should be reported for what it is...certain types of cranes, and a limited list of cities. I certainly believe places like Vancouver, Miami, and New York would score high if it was more comprehensive.

It's hard to believe that any place in the western world is building more multi-family housing than NYC right now. It feels like every former gas station, mechanic shop, or vacant lot in Brooklyn has a building going up on it now.

The answer is New York, then Toronto. Then #3 is probably Miami.

Everytime I think the supertalls are taking a pause, another one starts rising in NY.

How many Western cities have built 14 supertalls in a decade (with another 1,400' now beginning its ascent)? New York is on another level.

Built since 2010:

1. 3 World Trade Center - 1,079 (2018)
2. 9 DeKalb Avenue - 1,073 (2022)
3. 30 Hudson Yards - 1,270 (2019)
4. 35 Hudson Yards - 1,000 (2019)
5. 50 Hudson Yards - 1,011 (2022)
6. 53W53 - 1,050 (2019)
7. 111 West 57th Street - 1,428 (2021)
8. 270 Park Avenue - 1,425 (2024) *U/C*
9. 432 Park Avenue - 1,397 (2015)
10. Central Park Tower - 1,550 (2020)
11. One57 - 1,004 (2014)
12. One Manhattan West - 996 (2019)
13. One Vanderbilt - 1,401 (2020)
14. One World Trade Center - 1,776 (2014)
15. The Spiral - 1,041 (2023)

18 supertalls + 1U/C = 19. New York had 2(!) as recently as 2007.

And on the development pipeline we have:

1. 15 Penn Plaza - 1,270
2. 41 West 57th Street - 1,100
3. 175 Park Avenue - 1,646
4. 247 Cherry - 1,013
5. 343 Madison Ave - 1,050
6. 350 Park Avenue - 1,450
7. 520 5th Ave - 995
8. 740 Eighth Ave - 1,120
9. Tower Fifth - 1,556

That's 28 supertalls. Add in 1-2 new surprises announced in the next 2-3 years (including some mystery/stale proposals that could still materialize, like 265 West 45th) and 30+ supertalls by 2030 is highly likely imo.

No one else in North America, or the West for that matter, comes close.

And yes I'm ignoring all those 700-984' skyscrapers that New York keeps building in droves. Those get lost in the skyline nowadays so while they're still noteworthy in every other Western city, in New York, they barely get a passing glance.

This can very easily be calculated. What's the NYC proper building permit/housing starts data?

I use this link to find the information for New Jersey.
https://nj.gov/labor/lpa/industry/bp/bpmun/bpjul21.htm

For Jersey City, 1,341 units have received building permits from the start of the year until July 2021. For past years:
2020 - 3,552
2019 - 4,675


What's the numbers for NYC proper? Canada will have a different methodology, but any numbers for Toronto or Vancouver?

Toronto (CMA) for 2020 *** Edit 38,587 housing starts. (thanks to @MonkeyRonin for pointing that out)
That excludes Hamilton/Burlington, and Whitby/Oshawa.

So Oakville to Ajax, north to Bradford area.

https://www03.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/hmip-p...hyName=Toronto

Is it possible to obtain city proper numbers instead of metro areas?
-edit-

The link was very helpful. I count 20,982 for Toronto when copying and pasting into Excel for 2020.
Anyone have the number for NYC?

Not sure if they're exactly comparable (housing starts vs. building permits), but New York is here: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NEWY636BPPRIV

+55,875 in the past 12 months for the MSA.

Others:
Boston MSA: +16,570 (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BOST625BPPRIV)
Dallas MSA: +51,005 (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DALL148BP1FH)
Houston MSA: +53,702 (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/HOUS448BP1FHSA)
Philadelphia MSA: +20,900 (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PHIL942BPPRIV)
Washington MSA: +27,609 (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WASH911BPPRIVSA)

Note, these are September 2020-August 2021. Not 2020. So slightly different than the Canadian numbers posted above.

Not entirely comparable. Housing starts are strictly new residential units; whereas building permits would include renovations, additions, replacement dwellings, and non-residential construction. On the other hand, a single multi-unit building would likely entail only a single building permit, so permits aren't otherwise a great indicator of the number of housing units being added.

Also, I'm getting 38,587 housing starts (all types) for Toronto CMA in 2020, per the link above?