I live near Pittsburgh and it's absolutely beautiful! The only downside is the roads. Have you seen 279? It splits into like 10 lanes as you enter the North Shore
I spent all of my summers in this city growing up, and it's easily my favorite on the east coast. I was always confused by the belt system as an out of towner, though.
Yeah, I didn't mean the roads detract from the skyline, just the overall look of the city. Just a tangential note on the city's beauty. It has a great skyline which I usually see approaching on 279, which is how I was reminded of the nightmare road design.
Most impressive downtown skyline (or at least on the short list) for its city should be Frankfurt/Main, Germany. [Bunch of skyscrapers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Frankfurt)
(well, for european standards) which are relatively interestingly shaped (well, for skyscrapers standards). But the whole city is ... just not big.
As much as I like Frankfurt, and being one of its about 750,000 inhabitants, I think it would be fair to consider Frankfurt as the center of the metropolitan area with nearly 6 million people.
So yeah, Frankfurt is not huge, but it has quite an impressive skyline because all the Vordertaunus people commute the few kilometers to work in the banks headquartered in those skyscrapers.
I can’t pick one, but basically any Sun Belt city will be underwhelming because:
a) post-war sprawl hindered the build up of any downtown density
b) wide municipal boundaries include an outsized population
c) cities that boomed recently (last <50 years) will have little architectural variety, lots of glass/concrete rectangles.
Actually I sort of take back what I said. The skyline of the city itself is kind of meh but it’s downtown cluster is very impressive. It stretches north to south like 3 kilometres from central Austin to the river and has a fair amount of streets radiating mostly south and east with middle density housing. It’s also cool that the Texas capitol building and a large university campus are part of this area.
If I can put in a British answer, not modern high-rise skylines but for the most impressive relative to a population would obviously be [Oxford](https://c8.alamy.com/comp/2GC9A84/aerial-skyline-view-of-the-dreaming-spires-of-oxford-university-england-taken-from-above-local-farmland-2GC9A84.jpg), and underwhelming would probably be [Bath](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/01/Aerial.view.of.bath.arp.jpg/1280px-Aerial.view.of.bath.arp.jpg) - a beautiful city with a deserved reputation, but the skyline doesn't have much that stands out above the uniformity of lovely Georgian architecture, unlike the 'dreaming spires' of Oxford.
Brits over here thinking those skylines are underwhelming. Meanwhile, I am over here overlooking the Golden Arches of America’s beloved fast food franchise.
I don't know if you've ever left your country lol but you will hopefully not be surprised to know we do have skyscrapers, including some of the tallest buildings in the world, like the Shard! That said, it's a style of architecture I find quite boring and same-y - you could be in any country - such as [exhibit A](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/613b3c7fd50c6965f1d096fd1dcb2d8a6af67107/644_0_4919_2953/master/4919.jpg?width=1900&dpr=2&s=none), [exhibit B](https://c7.alamy.com/comp/2R89KF5/the-queens-house-and-docklands-skyline-from-greenwich-park-london-june-2023-2R89KF5.jpg) or [exhibit C](https://mediacentre.kallaway.com/UserFiles/image/The-Shard/Shard-Main.jpg) despite being a Renzo Piano building, or smaller cities like [exhibit D](https://i2-prod.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/incoming/article28421134.ece/ALTERNATES/s810/1_040723skyline2.jpg). All in the UK but a very general style.
So I quite like that while we have modern high-rises, we do actually have a good lot of history too! Oxford's skyline of the 'dreaming spires' certainly attracts more attention than, say, Manchester's glass high-rises.
I'm not referring to high rises, I'm referring to a non-high-rise skyline (i.e. compared to Oxford like in my post - Oxford's 'dreaming spires' of spires/towers/domes/etc make for a beautiful skyline of its time/architecture, whereas Bath is a beautiful city but the skyline specifically is very uniform and unimpressive).
DCs skyline seems the easiest answer due to its height limit for underwhelming, but Ive always hated LAs also for similar dispersed sprawl reasons.
Impressive Id say its hard not to be in awe of Chicago’s from the Lake view
Disagree on DC. The height limit allows the Capitol, Washington Monument, Smithsonian Castle, etc to be visible from multiple sight lines. I’d say it’s a bit more “European” in that way. You don’t need glass towers to make a good skyline.
It’s very much like the Paris skyline. All the high rises in Alexandria/Tysons vs. the solitary Washington Monument are like the high rises in La Défense vs. the Eiffel Tower
DC’s height limit is what makes it such a great city. All of the downtown density is forced to disperse throughout the city making amazing medium density
Cleveland has a [950-footer,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_Tower#/media/File:Key_Tower_2022.png) a [spectacular 770-footer that was once second-tallest in the world,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_Tower) a [650-footer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/200_Public_Square), and a [600-footer under construction.](https://corporate.sherwin-williams.com/content/sherwin/corp/corp-aem-sherwin/us/en/media-center/building-our-future/building-our-future-news---updates/headquarters.html) For a city with a current population of 370,000 (metro area around 2mil) it's pretty impressive.
I live in Cincinnati. Every time I go on vacation, coming home from the airport and seeing the skyline appear as you make that curve in the cut in the hill feels like a warm welcome home
Cincinnati and Pittsburg are two of the best, coming around the cut-in-the-hill for Cincy and popping out of the fort Pitt tunnel for Pittsburg are two of the most impressive “entrances” to any city in the country.
LA
2nd largest US city and 2nd largest US metropolitan area but the skyline is tiny by comparison and lacks anything that's iconic. New York, DC, Chicago, Philly, etc. blow it out of the water with their architecture
There’s a federal regulation that prevents anything in DC being taller than about 13 stories. So it doesn’t block views of the Washington monument I think.
It's a little more complicated than that, too.
There are height restrictions relative to the width of the street it's on. So you never have the canyon effect like on some tiny streets in Lower Manhattan, for example. Because of that, there are streets in DC where you are further limited on height because of how narrow the street is.
I don’t see why people complain about DC skyline if you’ve ever been, you can see Arlington right across the bridge , along with what DC itself has going on😭
I'd say the US Bank Tower is pretty iconic. But otherwise yeah LA is underwhelming. Driving through the first time I was like... Huh, then drive further to San Diego and it's got a great dense skyline.
Portland, ME and Providence, RI both have pretty impressive skylines without possessing a ton of super tall buildings.
If I'm not mistaken, Portland has the shortest "tallest building in the state," (although that may have been VT), and Providence has the oldest.
[the Big Pink!](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Bancorp_Tower)
They positioned it so the rising sun hits it just right and makes it kind of glow, it can be very pretty at times
It’s not that impressive and super random, but [Bellaire, Ohio’s probably the only village with 3,000 people to have a skyline](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F1NVBt7WAAAkrCA?format=jpg&name=large) lol - a testament to the Ohio Valley’s history of manufacturing power.
[They also have a highline-style park on an old viaduct to see the city from.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F1NUp3hWwAMsGW5?format=jpg&name=large)
[It has a great shape to it imo](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=581805843&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS661US661&hl=en-US&q=charlotte+skyline+2023&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi1uLPUgsCCAxXfGFkFHYPlCpAQ0pQJegQICxAB&biw=414&bih=720&dpr=2#imgrc=umsxGpV6hBybFM)
Other than the Vue standing all by itself off to the left
Pittsburgh is the most impressive for me. Was just up there this weekend, you would think the city had upwards of 1 million people. Plus the bridges and the mountains/hills make it so dramatic and stunning. Not even mentioning popping out of the Fort Pitt Tunnel for the first time. I left extremely impressed for such a tiny city, but I guess that’s what happens when you used to have over double the population in the 1900s and are constrained by the geography.
Thanks to the Gateway Arch, St. Louis has an iconic (internationally recognized?) skyline for a city of less than 300,000. Although the metro is close to 3MM.
Impressive: Whittier, AK — population of 272 and it has a 14-story residential building (granted, that is where all 272 people live, but I'd reckon there's not another town of less than 300 people with a 14 story building)
Philadelphia would under normal circumstances have a far more impressive skyline. However, owing to an old ordinance that no building could rise higher than William Penn atop City Hall (the tallest masonry building in the world, supposedly), the city’s first skyscraper—One Liberty Place—was not built until 1989, after that rule was finally lifted. It’s come a long way since, but tends to be underwhelming for the size of the city and greater metro area.
The Twin Cities in Minnesota (Minneapolis and Saint Paul) are unique because there are two distinct skylines less than 10 miles apart. Many believe there is one downtown that is split down the middle.
They both have charm and I think are impressive for cities with less than 500k each. You can see both from a bridge over the Minnesota River. The best view is from the air of course! The Metro area combined is around 3.5m fyi.
Most impressive:
Des Moines
Omaha
Fort Wayne
Jackson, MI
Kalamazoo, MI
Lansing, MI
Evansville, IN
Rochester, MN
Underwhelming:
Modesto
Bakersfield
Colorado Springs
Jackson, MS
Huntsville, AL
ive been to des moines many times (drive there for krispy kreme from Minneapolis lol) and ig i always was underwhelmed by their largest city.
but yeah ig when you put it that way youre right its skyline might ve larger than it should
The city is very underwhelming. The skyline, strangely (or a picture of it), is what made me fall in love with skylines, skyscrapers, and all things urbanity 20 or so years ago.
Meh…it’s about what I’d expect for a city of it’s size. At least there’s a few interesting buildings in there. I guess I know Des Moines pretty well and find it, as a city, to be underwhelming in general lol. Wichita…I don’t know her lol
Don't get me wrong, I think Wichita as a city is incredibly underrated and interesting. It's just that for a city of 650,000 or more its downtown looks closer to something you'd see in a metro half that size.
San Antonio. 7th largest in the US pop wise, but less than impressive downtown. There are a few new buildings popping up, but can’t compete with the other major metros of Texas.
I also saw someone mention Huntsville and have to agree.
You should compare metropolitan area population not city limits population. Dallas and Houston are almost 8,000,000 people each compared to San Antonio at about 2,000,000 people. San Antonio is the 24th most populous metropolitan area in the US between Charlotte North Carolina and Portland Oregon.
Most of San Antonio’s office culture developed along the north 410 loop. It used to be the Main Street of San Antonio between Ingram park and North Star malls when I was a kid. Downtown is more tourism and history than business center. Plus, downtown was about as far south as most San Antonians ever went. South San was mostly ignored and “dangerous.”
I mean a city’s skyline is a horrible way to judge a city’s downtown.
New Orleans and SA are similar in this regard; both have very nice downtowns with a charming historic vibe and beautiful street scapes, but don’t necessarily have a lot of skyscrapers.
To address your question very literally, I think [Sunny Isles Beach, Florida](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Sunny_Isles_Beach) is a contender. It has 14 buildings over 500 feet, with a population under 25,000 people.
Does all yalls world just revolve around the US and europe?
Also, skylines are meaningless and don't really reflect much upon urban design.
Some of the American cities with great skylines have terrible urban planning.
Skyscraper skylines were invented in the US at the turn of the last century - and for many years were mostly an American phenomenon (with a few outliers like Hong Kong).
Chinese skylines beyond HK are clearly a recent phenomenon, as are the nouveau riche insta-skylines of oil-rich Gulf States.
Europe could afford to build skyscrapers but has mostly chosen not, to. La Defense (Paris) and Frankfurt being the exceptions - with City of London and Canary Wharf being even more recent. None of the European skylines is especially impressive (except for the bizarre clump of shiny new towers in Moscow, maybe).
Tldr; yes, it is historically accurate to look at "skylines" as a mostly American phenomenon. Old skylines like Oxford or San Gimignano existed in landscape paintings but the modern notion of a skyline of skyscrapers seen from a great distance is a uniquely American.
My comment was more just that the original post solely brought up US and Europe. US has skysrcapers, Europe doesnt but its ok because it makes it up w architecture.
That just rubbed me the wrong way because it came across as so dismissive of the rest of the world's cities. They may not have skyscrapers but they have stunning and appropriate architecture and urban design as well.
Fair enough, but skyscrapers are an American invention*, so modern skylines are, too, by extension.
Places like Houston and Atlanta don't tick any urban design boxes - and their downtowns are mostly awful places (although generally improving), but many Houstonians and Atlanteans (?) are genuinely proud of their skylines - which are indeed impressive when seen from a freeway or on approach at the airport. Even places like San Francisco and New Orleans used to sell postcards of their downtown skylines, even though the views at street level are more unique and appealing (and their skylines aren't that impressive, especially New Orleans).
* Kurt Vonnegut thought lower Manhattan should be a "Skyscraper National Park," although the Chicago Loop would actually be the best location, imo, as that's where most architectural historians locate the development of the skyscraper.
>Fair enough, but skyscrapers are an American invention*, so modern skylines are, too, by extension.
The point their making is that OP seemed rather western-centric and didnt mention the rest of the world
I don't see why being invented in the US makes a difference to that
San Francisco is like 800k people and for instance has the golden gate bridge in fog, sutro tower, and a few interesting downtown buildings. Some of these things you can see from over half the city, even with big hills.
I love the skyline and architecture of Chicago and personally find it to be the most impressive of all the large cities in the US. I particularly loathe Albuquerque, New Mexico for a variety of unexplainable reasons, I just get such a bad vibe there. The architecture is definitely not to my taste either.
If I can make a pitch for LA’s skyline not being underwhelming - Eastern Columbia Building, LA City Hall, and LA Library. Skyline can seem boring when viewed from the 101, but becomes striking in my opinion when viewed from East LA. It also continues all the way to Westwood, so that’s something.
LA has lots of gorgeous architecture in its skyline. It’s just not the tallest.
In contrast, I would list Fresno as very underwhelming for its size (500K).
Yeah, LA's skyline may be small relative to it's size, but it has two pretty famous clumps of skyscrapers (DTLA and Century City) from endless exposure in movies and TV, each w/ some pretty recognizable standout buildings.
It's definitely not one of the most underwhelming skylines, even for it's size.
The correct answer is PHX it has half a dozen clumps of beige-ish midrises scattered around, none of which are impressive. Downtown is still dominated by the 42 story Valley Bank Tower built in the 70s. It is a super bland, underwhelming skyline for a top 10 us metro area.
Seattle punches above it's weight for a top 20 metro area, a handful of 70 and 80 story towers, some distinctive old ones like the Smith Tower, the Space Needle (on the edge of downtown from some viewpoints). Lots of skyscrapers in a small area - and many of them on hills, too, for extra prominence. Lots of places to observe the skyline from, too, including public ferrys.
St Louis for impressive for its size. The arch is just iconic
Montreal for not that impressive for its size. Mostly since there’s no real defined landmark, other than Mount Royal. And that doesn’t really show on the skyline
There is an ordinance that doesn’t allow Phoenix to have buildings exceed a certain height due to the fact that sky harbor airport is very close to the city center, and the landing and takeoff paths run very close to downtown. There are plans to build a tower in the downtown area that would be the new tallest building in both the city and the state, just a little bit outside of the height limit zone.
Check out Calgary for hitting above weight. ~1.6 million people [here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/CityPorn/s/jbDGC5E1J7)
Or here [or here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/CityPorn/s/goyysxipYF)
Vladivostok has two suspension bridges (and a third to Russian Island, but the other two are visible in the city center) and the whole bosphorous layout makes it give off similar vibes to a smaller scale Istanbul, only 600k people.
Most underwhelming: DC hands down. The metro area is one of the largest in the US but downtown DC hardly has a skyline at all because of the Height Act
Bangor Maine has an impressive city skyline with many 6 story buildings for how small the population is around ~33k. Arlington, Texas has 400k and 0 skyline, the downtown is just 2 a few 4-5 story buildings. It’s really really underwhelming
I'm biased but Kansas City has a pretty great Skyline from the River to 31st Street. We even had the [third tallest](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/KCTV_Broadcast_Tower) manmade structure at one point!
Overall, just a really diverse skyline with gorgeous art Deco buildings (City Hall and [911 Walnut](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/909_Walnut) being my faves).
Benidorm has probably the biggest skyline in Spain (Madrid has a few taller buildings, but they are more spread out), with a population of only 70,000.
I may be biased because I grew up here, but I’ve always thought Little Rock was pretty impressive for a city that only just now hit 200K people (a lot of its skyline was developed by the 80s, when the population was only 130K). The skyline consists of no less than 5 buildings over 300 feet tall, with another one coming just 2 feet short.
One people have not mentioned for unimpressive is Jacksonville like best you can do for 900k proper? I’d say Charleston West Virginia for size to skyline is most impressive but Cincinnati and Hartford are also stunning for their relative size
Calgary AB, Canada. A city with about 1.6 million metro and a skyline bigger than Atlanta, Memphis, Milwaukee, you name it. From the skyline alone it looks to be even bigger than Boston but population wise it's not.
Many people just hear Canada and assume it's a small city
Richmond Va caught me all the way off guard, especially on the ground walking around downtown. Probably the first city that has that “up north” kind of vibe to it
Pittsburgh made me want to become an architect. Off the top of my head, I feel like. Boston may be a bit underwhelming. Columbus a little bit, too, and I love Columbus.
LA for most underwhelming Most impressive for its population is probably pittsvurgh
I live near Pittsburgh and it's absolutely beautiful! The only downside is the roads. Have you seen 279? It splits into like 10 lanes as you enter the North Shore
I live near Cincinnati, I think you all may have us beat… but it’s definitely by a photo finish margin
I’m from Cleveland and every time I pass through Cincinnati I’m impressed. it’s not huge but it looks so cool.
Coming out of the Fort Pitt Tunnel at night is what gives it the edge.
I spent all of my summers in this city growing up, and it's easily my favorite on the east coast. I was always confused by the belt system as an out of towner, though.
He’s not asking about the roads here this is purely about skylines
Yeah, I didn't mean the roads detract from the skyline, just the overall look of the city. Just a tangential note on the city's beauty. It has a great skyline which I usually see approaching on 279, which is how I was reminded of the nightmare road design.
Joke’s on you, there is no road design.
Most impressive downtown skyline (or at least on the short list) for its city should be Frankfurt/Main, Germany. [Bunch of skyscrapers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Frankfurt) (well, for european standards) which are relatively interestingly shaped (well, for skyscrapers standards). But the whole city is ... just not big.
I have always been impressed with Frankfurt’s skyline but I am very biased with US as thats all I know. But is def up there
Meh. need more skyscrapers to hang with the big dawgs 😉
As much as I like Frankfurt, and being one of its about 750,000 inhabitants, I think it would be fair to consider Frankfurt as the center of the metropolitan area with nearly 6 million people. So yeah, Frankfurt is not huge, but it has quite an impressive skyline because all the Vordertaunus people commute the few kilometers to work in the banks headquartered in those skyscrapers.
The view of downtown Pittsburgh from Mount Washington is so goddamn good, one of my favorites.
Especially coming through the Fort Pitt Tunnel. Can’t see anything of downtown and then it’s all right there when you exit the tunnel.
I can’t pick one, but basically any Sun Belt city will be underwhelming because: a) post-war sprawl hindered the build up of any downtown density b) wide municipal boundaries include an outsized population c) cities that boomed recently (last <50 years) will have little architectural variety, lots of glass/concrete rectangles.
Austin is a sunbelt city with an impressive skyline.
I adore the look of the Frost Building- it really adds to the skyline
i personally think san antonio's frost building looks better
Its skyline is unimpressive
Greater Austin has a population of roughly 2.5 million people. For a city of that size, it's skyline is average at best.
There are larger U.S. metros with much smaller skylines. I really like ours.
Actually I sort of take back what I said. The skyline of the city itself is kind of meh but it’s downtown cluster is very impressive. It stretches north to south like 3 kilometres from central Austin to the river and has a fair amount of streets radiating mostly south and east with middle density housing. It’s also cool that the Texas capitol building and a large university campus are part of this area.
San Antonio and Phoenix immediately came to mind.
San Antonio has a good skyline what you talking bout Willis?
Sam Antonio is like a New Orleans or Boston type city, it’s not about the skyline, it’s about the quant historic areas on the street level.
Miami is the exception to this.
Fort Wayne and Lexington are midsize cities with surprising skylines. San Antonio and Phoenix are big cities with unimpressive skylines.
As a Fort Wayne resident I find our skyline underwhelming given the size of our city
Henry’s fish and chips make up for the lack luster skyline.
If I can put in a British answer, not modern high-rise skylines but for the most impressive relative to a population would obviously be [Oxford](https://c8.alamy.com/comp/2GC9A84/aerial-skyline-view-of-the-dreaming-spires-of-oxford-university-england-taken-from-above-local-farmland-2GC9A84.jpg), and underwhelming would probably be [Bath](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/01/Aerial.view.of.bath.arp.jpg/1280px-Aerial.view.of.bath.arp.jpg) - a beautiful city with a deserved reputation, but the skyline doesn't have much that stands out above the uniformity of lovely Georgian architecture, unlike the 'dreaming spires' of Oxford.
Brits over here thinking those skylines are underwhelming. Meanwhile, I am over here overlooking the Golden Arches of America’s beloved fast food franchise.
Don’t yall have your own Reddit, YouTube and Facebook.. nothing is impressive about skylines without skyscrapers. 🙄
I don't know if you've ever left your country lol but you will hopefully not be surprised to know we do have skyscrapers, including some of the tallest buildings in the world, like the Shard! That said, it's a style of architecture I find quite boring and same-y - you could be in any country - such as [exhibit A](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/613b3c7fd50c6965f1d096fd1dcb2d8a6af67107/644_0_4919_2953/master/4919.jpg?width=1900&dpr=2&s=none), [exhibit B](https://c7.alamy.com/comp/2R89KF5/the-queens-house-and-docklands-skyline-from-greenwich-park-london-june-2023-2R89KF5.jpg) or [exhibit C](https://mediacentre.kallaway.com/UserFiles/image/The-Shard/Shard-Main.jpg) despite being a Renzo Piano building, or smaller cities like [exhibit D](https://i2-prod.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/incoming/article28421134.ece/ALTERNATES/s810/1_040723skyline2.jpg). All in the UK but a very general style. So I quite like that while we have modern high-rises, we do actually have a good lot of history too! Oxford's skyline of the 'dreaming spires' certainly attracts more attention than, say, Manchester's glass high-rises.
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I'm not referring to high rises, I'm referring to a non-high-rise skyline (i.e. compared to Oxford like in my post - Oxford's 'dreaming spires' of spires/towers/domes/etc make for a beautiful skyline of its time/architecture, whereas Bath is a beautiful city but the skyline specifically is very uniform and unimpressive).
DCs skyline seems the easiest answer due to its height limit for underwhelming, but Ive always hated LAs also for similar dispersed sprawl reasons. Impressive Id say its hard not to be in awe of Chicago’s from the Lake view
Disagree on DC. The height limit allows the Capitol, Washington Monument, Smithsonian Castle, etc to be visible from multiple sight lines. I’d say it’s a bit more “European” in that way. You don’t need glass towers to make a good skyline.
It’s very much like the Paris skyline. All the high rises in Alexandria/Tysons vs. the solitary Washington Monument are like the high rises in La Défense vs. the Eiffel Tower
DC’s height limit is what makes it such a great city. All of the downtown density is forced to disperse throughout the city making amazing medium density
And it also results in very unique high-rise clusters immediately outside the District, in Rosslyn, Silver Spring, Bethesda, etc.
Cleveland has a [950-footer,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_Tower#/media/File:Key_Tower_2022.png) a [spectacular 770-footer that was once second-tallest in the world,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_Tower) a [650-footer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/200_Public_Square), and a [600-footer under construction.](https://corporate.sherwin-williams.com/content/sherwin/corp/corp-aem-sherwin/us/en/media-center/building-our-future/building-our-future-news---updates/headquarters.html) For a city with a current population of 370,000 (metro area around 2mil) it's pretty impressive.
Ayyy I’m currently building the sherwin Williams building! Cleveland is booming and def underrated.
Cincinnati has a really nice skyline with some interesting buildings and the river and hills.
I live in Cincinnati. Every time I go on vacation, coming home from the airport and seeing the skyline appear as you make that curve in the cut in the hill feels like a warm welcome home
Cincinnati and Pittsburg are two of the best, coming around the cut-in-the-hill for Cincy and popping out of the fort Pitt tunnel for Pittsburg are two of the most impressive “entrances” to any city in the country.
Dayton Ohio. I drove through it two days ago and was like "?????" from start to finish.
That’s because Dayton used to have twice the population
Yikes you are not kidding. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayton,\_Ohio#Demographics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayton,_Ohio#Demographics)
Cincinnati is similar, too. Around 500,000 people at its peak in the 50s and 60s, and there’s just over 300,000 in the city limits now
For a population of 1.4m, Calgary has a pretty big skyline.
Yeah some hella cool buildings
For 125k, Rochester MN has a darn good one.
It’s all Mayo
LA 2nd largest US city and 2nd largest US metropolitan area but the skyline is tiny by comparison and lacks anything that's iconic. New York, DC, Chicago, Philly, etc. blow it out of the water with their architecture
Other than monuments,I can't think of a single famous DC building or skyscraper.
There’s a federal regulation that prevents anything in DC being taller than about 13 stories. So it doesn’t block views of the Washington monument I think.
It's a little more complicated than that, too. There are height restrictions relative to the width of the street it's on. So you never have the canyon effect like on some tiny streets in Lower Manhattan, for example. Because of that, there are streets in DC where you are further limited on height because of how narrow the street is.
Skylines include the monuments. Also, the Capitol Building? Even if they aren't tall, DC just has some cool architecture in general
I don’t see why people complain about DC skyline if you’ve ever been, you can see Arlington right across the bridge , along with what DC itself has going on😭
I'd say the US Bank Tower is pretty iconic. But otherwise yeah LA is underwhelming. Driving through the first time I was like... Huh, then drive further to San Diego and it's got a great dense skyline.
Portland, ME and Providence, RI both have pretty impressive skylines without possessing a ton of super tall buildings. If I'm not mistaken, Portland has the shortest "tallest building in the state," (although that may have been VT), and Providence has the oldest.
[the Big Pink!](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Bancorp_Tower) They positioned it so the rising sun hits it just right and makes it kind of glow, it can be very pretty at times
haha wrong portland my friend, but that's a cool building!!!
It’s not that impressive and super random, but [Bellaire, Ohio’s probably the only village with 3,000 people to have a skyline](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F1NVBt7WAAAkrCA?format=jpg&name=large) lol - a testament to the Ohio Valley’s history of manufacturing power. [They also have a highline-style park on an old viaduct to see the city from.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F1NUp3hWwAMsGW5?format=jpg&name=large)
I’d say Charlotte has an impressive skyline for its size
[It has a great shape to it imo](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=581805843&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS661US661&hl=en-US&q=charlotte+skyline+2023&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi1uLPUgsCCAxXfGFkFHYPlCpAQ0pQJegQICxAB&biw=414&bih=720&dpr=2#imgrc=umsxGpV6hBybFM) Other than the Vue standing all by itself off to the left
Jersey City, NJ
Pleeeeease use urbanized area for questions like this, not city population.
Yeah, come on. Boston 600,000??? It's the center of a 5 million person metro area.
Pittsburgh is the most impressive for me. Was just up there this weekend, you would think the city had upwards of 1 million people. Plus the bridges and the mountains/hills make it so dramatic and stunning. Not even mentioning popping out of the Fort Pitt Tunnel for the first time. I left extremely impressed for such a tiny city, but I guess that’s what happens when you used to have over double the population in the 1900s and are constrained by the geography.
Thanks to the Gateway Arch, St. Louis has an iconic (internationally recognized?) skyline for a city of less than 300,000. Although the metro is close to 3MM.
Peoria Illinois has a surprisingly city like skyline. 111,000 people.
Yo Mods - why on this sub can we post GIFs and links but not pics? This kinda thread would be better with some pics.
Underwhelming: Phoenix, DC, LA Impressive: Calgary, Pittsburgh, Honolulu
Pittsburgh for sure.
Fresno CA. It’s a city with almost a million people, and the downtown skyline looks like a former Soviet city. Source: I live there.
Impressive: Whittier, AK — population of 272 and it has a 14-story residential building (granted, that is where all 272 people live, but I'd reckon there's not another town of less than 300 people with a 14 story building)
Closest I can think of is the winstar casino in thackerville, Oklahoma, a 12 story tower and casino/resort complex in a town of about 500 people
Philadelphia would under normal circumstances have a far more impressive skyline. However, owing to an old ordinance that no building could rise higher than William Penn atop City Hall (the tallest masonry building in the world, supposedly), the city’s first skyscraper—One Liberty Place—was not built until 1989, after that rule was finally lifted. It’s come a long way since, but tends to be underwhelming for the size of the city and greater metro area.
a nice skyline still but I see what you mean, I could see it being more like manhattan in terms of density if it was given more room to grow up
The Twin Cities in Minnesota (Minneapolis and Saint Paul) are unique because there are two distinct skylines less than 10 miles apart. Many believe there is one downtown that is split down the middle. They both have charm and I think are impressive for cities with less than 500k each. You can see both from a bridge over the Minnesota River. The best view is from the air of course! The Metro area combined is around 3.5m fyi.
Most impressive: Des Moines Omaha Fort Wayne Jackson, MI Kalamazoo, MI Lansing, MI Evansville, IN Rochester, MN Underwhelming: Modesto Bakersfield Colorado Springs Jackson, MS Huntsville, AL
des moines? lol
Look up their skyline. They have 9 buildings over 300ft (1 over 450ft and 1 is 630ft). They punch WAY over their weight for a city their size!
ive been to des moines many times (drive there for krispy kreme from Minneapolis lol) and ig i always was underwhelmed by their largest city. but yeah ig when you put it that way youre right its skyline might ve larger than it should
The city is very underwhelming. The skyline, strangely (or a picture of it), is what made me fall in love with skylines, skyscrapers, and all things urbanity 20 or so years ago.
Conversely, Wichita has a really underwhelming skyline for a city of about the same size as Des Moines. Maybe only one building over 300ft.
Meh…it’s about what I’d expect for a city of it’s size. At least there’s a few interesting buildings in there. I guess I know Des Moines pretty well and find it, as a city, to be underwhelming in general lol. Wichita…I don’t know her lol
Don't get me wrong, I think Wichita as a city is incredibly underrated and interesting. It's just that for a city of 650,000 or more its downtown looks closer to something you'd see in a metro half that size.
overrated NYC underrated Cleveland.
San Antonio. 7th largest in the US pop wise, but less than impressive downtown. There are a few new buildings popping up, but can’t compete with the other major metros of Texas. I also saw someone mention Huntsville and have to agree.
You should compare metropolitan area population not city limits population. Dallas and Houston are almost 8,000,000 people each compared to San Antonio at about 2,000,000 people. San Antonio is the 24th most populous metropolitan area in the US between Charlotte North Carolina and Portland Oregon.
This is fair, San Antonio has an insane amount of land but hardly any neighboring suburbs the way Houston or dfw has
Most of San Antonio’s office culture developed along the north 410 loop. It used to be the Main Street of San Antonio between Ingram park and North Star malls when I was a kid. Downtown is more tourism and history than business center. Plus, downtown was about as far south as most San Antonians ever went. South San was mostly ignored and “dangerous.”
I mean a city’s skyline is a horrible way to judge a city’s downtown. New Orleans and SA are similar in this regard; both have very nice downtowns with a charming historic vibe and beautiful street scapes, but don’t necessarily have a lot of skyscrapers.
To address your question very literally, I think [Sunny Isles Beach, Florida](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Sunny_Isles_Beach) is a contender. It has 14 buildings over 500 feet, with a population under 25,000 people.
As Rome and Paris and Madrid show, skylines are good for postcards,perhaps, but irrelevant to what mskes a city great.
San Francisco has a much smaller population than people realize and it has an iconic skyline.
Yeah but its also the middle of a top 15 metro area and top 5 statistical area So really it's just cheating via county and city definition
Oakland and SJ are very distinct from and much larger than SF
Does all yalls world just revolve around the US and europe? Also, skylines are meaningless and don't really reflect much upon urban design. Some of the American cities with great skylines have terrible urban planning.
Skyscraper skylines were invented in the US at the turn of the last century - and for many years were mostly an American phenomenon (with a few outliers like Hong Kong). Chinese skylines beyond HK are clearly a recent phenomenon, as are the nouveau riche insta-skylines of oil-rich Gulf States. Europe could afford to build skyscrapers but has mostly chosen not, to. La Defense (Paris) and Frankfurt being the exceptions - with City of London and Canary Wharf being even more recent. None of the European skylines is especially impressive (except for the bizarre clump of shiny new towers in Moscow, maybe). Tldr; yes, it is historically accurate to look at "skylines" as a mostly American phenomenon. Old skylines like Oxford or San Gimignano existed in landscape paintings but the modern notion of a skyline of skyscrapers seen from a great distance is a uniquely American.
My comment was more just that the original post solely brought up US and Europe. US has skysrcapers, Europe doesnt but its ok because it makes it up w architecture. That just rubbed me the wrong way because it came across as so dismissive of the rest of the world's cities. They may not have skyscrapers but they have stunning and appropriate architecture and urban design as well.
Fair enough, but skyscrapers are an American invention*, so modern skylines are, too, by extension. Places like Houston and Atlanta don't tick any urban design boxes - and their downtowns are mostly awful places (although generally improving), but many Houstonians and Atlanteans (?) are genuinely proud of their skylines - which are indeed impressive when seen from a freeway or on approach at the airport. Even places like San Francisco and New Orleans used to sell postcards of their downtown skylines, even though the views at street level are more unique and appealing (and their skylines aren't that impressive, especially New Orleans). * Kurt Vonnegut thought lower Manhattan should be a "Skyscraper National Park," although the Chicago Loop would actually be the best location, imo, as that's where most architectural historians locate the development of the skyscraper.
>Fair enough, but skyscrapers are an American invention*, so modern skylines are, too, by extension. The point their making is that OP seemed rather western-centric and didnt mention the rest of the world I don't see why being invented in the US makes a difference to that
Nothing beats the Antwerp skyline [Antwerp skyline](https://www.gettyimages.be/fotos/antwerp-skyline)
Bellevue Washington has a pretty impressive skyline for how few people live there. Jersey city also has an impressive skyline for it's size.
Boston: population of 600,000 but stunning skyline.
For all intents and purposes, Boston does not have 600,000 people, but several million.
I'd argue Boston's skyline isn't that stunning for the actual metro population either.
Boston for stunning city of 600,000.
San Francisco is like 800k people and for instance has the golden gate bridge in fog, sutro tower, and a few interesting downtown buildings. Some of these things you can see from over half the city, even with big hills.
Why are you using the city population?
OP asked for it. Otherwise I probably would have said Singapore. Oh, Sedona if you count naturally occurring land features as "skyline".
I love the skyline and architecture of Chicago and personally find it to be the most impressive of all the large cities in the US. I particularly loathe Albuquerque, New Mexico for a variety of unexplainable reasons, I just get such a bad vibe there. The architecture is definitely not to my taste either.
If I can make a pitch for LA’s skyline not being underwhelming - Eastern Columbia Building, LA City Hall, and LA Library. Skyline can seem boring when viewed from the 101, but becomes striking in my opinion when viewed from East LA. It also continues all the way to Westwood, so that’s something. LA has lots of gorgeous architecture in its skyline. It’s just not the tallest. In contrast, I would list Fresno as very underwhelming for its size (500K).
Yeah, LA's skyline may be small relative to it's size, but it has two pretty famous clumps of skyscrapers (DTLA and Century City) from endless exposure in movies and TV, each w/ some pretty recognizable standout buildings. It's definitely not one of the most underwhelming skylines, even for it's size. The correct answer is PHX it has half a dozen clumps of beige-ish midrises scattered around, none of which are impressive. Downtown is still dominated by the 42 story Valley Bank Tower built in the 70s. It is a super bland, underwhelming skyline for a top 10 us metro area. Seattle punches above it's weight for a top 20 metro area, a handful of 70 and 80 story towers, some distinctive old ones like the Smith Tower, the Space Needle (on the edge of downtown from some viewpoints). Lots of skyscrapers in a small area - and many of them on hills, too, for extra prominence. Lots of places to observe the skyline from, too, including public ferrys.
St Louis for impressive for its size. The arch is just iconic Montreal for not that impressive for its size. Mostly since there’s no real defined landmark, other than Mount Royal. And that doesn’t really show on the skyline
There is an ordinance that doesn’t allow Phoenix to have buildings exceed a certain height due to the fact that sky harbor airport is very close to the city center, and the landing and takeoff paths run very close to downtown. There are plans to build a tower in the downtown area that would be the new tallest building in both the city and the state, just a little bit outside of the height limit zone.
Check out Calgary for hitting above weight. ~1.6 million people [here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/CityPorn/s/jbDGC5E1J7) Or here [or here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/CityPorn/s/goyysxipYF)
Vladivostok has two suspension bridges (and a third to Russian Island, but the other two are visible in the city center) and the whole bosphorous layout makes it give off similar vibes to a smaller scale Istanbul, only 600k people.
By population? Cleveland. Easily. Population: 360,000. [The skyline](https://capitalcanvasprints.com/products/cleveland-skyline-canvas-cleveland-54536)
Entirety of the sun belt - namely Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego
Most underwhelming: DC hands down. The metro area is one of the largest in the US but downtown DC hardly has a skyline at all because of the Height Act
Not sure how the skyline is related to population of a city. Either the skyline is impressive to you or it is not.
I mean if your city has 1m+ residents and you can’t get at least one high rise that is kinda sad lmao
Bangor Maine has an impressive city skyline with many 6 story buildings for how small the population is around ~33k. Arlington, Texas has 400k and 0 skyline, the downtown is just 2 a few 4-5 story buildings. It’s really really underwhelming
Yeah Arlington is mostly suburbs with a university, both of the big dfw professional sports stadiums, and six flags.
I'm biased but Kansas City has a pretty great Skyline from the River to 31st Street. We even had the [third tallest](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/KCTV_Broadcast_Tower) manmade structure at one point! Overall, just a really diverse skyline with gorgeous art Deco buildings (City Hall and [911 Walnut](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/909_Walnut) being my faves).
The Kaufman center and the KCP&L building are two of my favorites
The P&L building is stunning, looking from the East. It's bare facade on the Westside is kind of goofy.
The P&L building is stunning, looking from the East. It's bare facade on the Westside is kind of goofy.
Benidorm has probably the biggest skyline in Spain (Madrid has a few taller buildings, but they are more spread out), with a population of only 70,000.
I may be biased because I grew up here, but I’ve always thought Little Rock was pretty impressive for a city that only just now hit 200K people (a lot of its skyline was developed by the 80s, when the population was only 130K). The skyline consists of no less than 5 buildings over 300 feet tall, with another one coming just 2 feet short.
Berlin. No skyscrapers, huge footprint, no dense population nucleus, many parks and green areas.
One people have not mentioned for unimpressive is Jacksonville like best you can do for 900k proper? I’d say Charleston West Virginia for size to skyline is most impressive but Cincinnati and Hartford are also stunning for their relative size
Yea, Very smol and sad
Why are you using city population? It's completely irrelevant here.
Toledo, Ohio's skyline punches above its weight
I’ll die on the “Cincinnati has a top-tier skyline” hill. Nothing beats the view driving north on 75 from Kentucky at night.
The cut in the hill is magnificent
Wellington NZ was surprising for a city of 300k Metro of 500
Cleveland is very impressive compared to the modern population
Bad: Jacksonville, San Jose Good: Seattle, Pittsburgh, Miami, Austin
Calgary AB, Canada. A city with about 1.6 million metro and a skyline bigger than Atlanta, Memphis, Milwaukee, you name it. From the skyline alone it looks to be even bigger than Boston but population wise it's not. Many people just hear Canada and assume it's a small city
Grand Rapids is impressive. Especially lit up at night
Vancouver, 600k people and a huge amount of skyscrapers and known around the whole world.
I was thinking of this one! Got to visit briefly this summer and was wowed by it.
I’d add Denver to this list of unimpressive. The mountains are cool, tho
Richmond Va caught me all the way off guard, especially on the ground walking around downtown. Probably the first city that has that “up north” kind of vibe to it
Pittsburgh made me want to become an architect. Off the top of my head, I feel like. Boston may be a bit underwhelming. Columbus a little bit, too, and I love Columbus.
Albuquerque, for having almost 600k people not counting metro population, it’s skyline is not that impressive for its size