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Toronto's skyline -- a quantitative approach

Why bother? The discussion will inevitably degenerate into one of those "my skyline is better than yours because..." arguments common among the trolls at SSP/SSC.

AoD
 
I'm not saying we have to rig a new system so that we wind up on top. I'm saying let's try to create a system that could find general acceptance across a broad range of interest groups...

...or am I being freakin' naïve? Does Emporis have it all wrapped up with their global reach?

42
 
42,

I am going ahead and ranking Toronto and Chicago (and possibly other cities), using the formula I had laid out in an earlier post:

n = INT((floors-11)*(sqrt(floors/12)))

This gives point scores for a given number of floors of:

FLOORS / POINTS

12 1
13 2
14 3
15 4
16 5
17 7
18 8
19 10
20 11
21 13
22 14
23 16
24 18
25 20
26 22
27 24
28 25
29 27
30 30
31 32
32 34
33 36
34 38
35 40
36 43
37 45
38 48
39 50
40 52
41 55
42 57
43 60
44 63
45 65
46 68
47 71
48 74
49 76
50 79
51 82
52 85
53 88
54 91
55 94
56 97
57 100
58 103
59 106
60 109
61 112
62 115
63 119
64 122
65 125
66 128
67 132
68 135
69 139
70 142
71 145
72 149
73 152
74 156
75 160
76 163
77 167
78 170
79 174
80 178
81 181
82 185
83 189
84 193
85 196
86 200
87 204
88 208
89 212
90 216
91 220
92 224
93 228
94 232
95 236
96 240
97 244
98 248
99 252
100 256

Counting only completed buildings in Emporis, we have for Toronto:

FLOORS / NUMBER OF BUILDINGS / POINTS / CUMULATIVE POINTS

12 229 229 229
13 148 296 525
14 154 462 987
15 140 560 1547
16 130 650 2197
17 116 812 3009
18 113 904 3913
19 86 860 4773
20 85 935 5708
21 56 728 6436
22 52 728 7164
23 58 928 8092
24 48 864 8956
25 24 480 9436
26 31 682 10118
27 28 672 10790
28 27 675 11465
29 24 648 12113
30 15 450 12563
31 13 416 12979
32 13 442 13421
33 10 360 13781
34 13 494 14275
35 4 160 14435
36 8 344 14779
37 7 315 15094
38 4 192 15286
39 3 150 15436
40 4 208 15644
41 1 55 15699
43 1 60 15759
44 2 126 15885
45 1 65 15950
46 4 272 16222
49 2 152 16374
51 3 246 16620
53 1 88 16708
56 1 97 16805
57 1 100 16905
68 1 135 17040
72 1 149 17189

Here are the results for Chicago using the same point system:

FLOORS / NUMBER OF BUILDINGS / POINTS / CUMULATIVE POINTS

12 83 83 83
13 79 158 241
14 64 192 433
15 65 260 693
16 61 305 998
17 53 371 1369
18 42 336 1705
19 45 450 2155
20 46 506 2661
21 44 572 3233
22 35 490 3723
23 38 608 4331
24 24 432 4763
25 28 560 5323
26 24 528 5851
27 38 912 6763
28 27 675 7438
29 25 675 8113
30 23 690 8803
31 5 160 8963
32 8 272 9235
33 13 468 9703
34 9 342 10045
35 7 280 10325
36 13 559 10884
37 11 495 11379
38 13 624 12003
39 11 550 12553
40 16 832 13385
41 9 495 13880
42 5 285 14165
43 5 300 14465
44 9 567 15032
45 9 585 15617
46 5 340 15957
47 4 284 16241
48 3 222 16463
49 9 684 17147
50 7 553 17700
51 2 164 17864
52 3 255 18119
53 1 88 18207
54 2 182 18389
55 2 188 18577
56 6 582 19159
57 5 500 19659
58 3 309 19968
60 2 218 20186
61 3 336 20522
63 1 119 20641
64 1 122 20763
65 1 125 20888
66 1 128 21016
67 1 132 21148
70 1 142 21290
74 1 156 21446
83 1 189 21635
100 1 256 21891
108 1 291 22182

So Chicago still comes out ahead, but it is much closer. Under this scoring system, Chicago is ahead by 29%, compared to the 113% lead it has under the Emporis scoring system. This sounds fair to me -- Chicago may have fewer highrises, but they ARE taller on average than in Toronto. I am sure that no other city in Canada or the USA (other than New York) comes close to these two cities.

Bill
 
I appreciate the interest people have in skylines but I'm not sure what comparisons of city skylines based on mathematical formula adds to the exprience of the city. How do we experience the skyline? Either as a static backdrop from, say an apartment balcony, office or a vista created by a body of water or park. As likely it is a dynamic experience driving down a highway or a moments glance across an intersection down a street canyon. Skylines are impressive things because of the drama created by how they delineate space. Size and number of buildings certainly can enhance this drama but they are in my opinion of much less important than things such as situation, juxtaposition and variation.
 
I am aware of all those things, but I still think that it is a good idea to put some solid numbers down, so that we at least have a common starting point.

In other words, when comparing two city's skylines, we can start by specifying that City A's skyline is 14% 'taller' than City B's skyline, while City A is 21% greater in 'scale' than City B. Given those numbers, we could state that City B's superior setting and more interesting spacing make up for the difference.

It's a lot like arguing over who is the greater baseball player. You can argue about who is faster, more graceful or has a keener batting eye all you want, but a knowledge of the actual statistics (preferably adjusted for park, era, etc.) makes for a more defensable position.

Bill
 
re: Chicago, when people think of a skyline, they almost inevitably think of the downtown skyline. Case in point - the picture gbelan posted. That makes the suburban city centres and scattered slabs pretty much irrelevant to most people. Chicago's downtown skyline is bigger and taller than Toronto's by any measure.
 
I do not think that anybody is arguing otherwise. However, it is also wrong, in my opinion, to completely ignore the city outside of the downtown core. Those highrises exist, and do have an impact on the skyline from certain angles. For example, go to the observation deck of the CN Tower, and these more distant buildings are quite visible (on a clear day).

This is an issue with relatively few cities, Toronto among them. Almost all American cities have their highrises almost exclusively in their downtown cores. Certainly, an 'America-booster' would prefer to ignore non-downtown highrises. But in the interest of impartial comparison, I feel that they cannot be ignored.

Bill
 
When it all comes down to it I don't think you can judge skylines based solely on numbers. I mean Emporis ranks Seoul third overall in the world based on numbers while the established "Big 3" of skylines around the world would be New York City, Hong Kong, and Chicago to the average skyscraper and urban afficionado. Despite Emporis ranking Toronto ahead of Chicago in terms of quantity in highrises, Chicago has by far more prolific and taller skyscrapers than Toronto.
 
Who is judging a skyline solely on numbers? To repeat myself, what I am trying to do is to establish a common frame of reference, concerning those aspects of a city skyline that CAN be impartially measured. Of course there are many other factors that go into a good skyline. I said as much in the first post on this thread. But you have to be aware of relative heights and numbers if you want to credibly compare skylines, otherwise it's all battling opinions, with no hope of a resolution.

Am I the only one who sees this?

Bill
 
I understand too. You're not giving the final word on the total beauty of the scene, but you are quantifying the total built form making up the skyline. What people want to do with the number is up to them.

42

Oh - and not all Americans would want to exclude extra-downtown buildings from the count. Miamians, for example, would want to count all of the condo towers lining their beaches for example. If we were to include Yonge-Eglinton in calculations, it wouldn't be us vs. all Americans.
 
I don't think any of this will work; as soon as someone promotes a new system ("hey, let's use formula blablabla which puts Chicago 10% in front of Toronto"), someone else will change a few numbers and put Chicago...as far ahead as it is now in Emporis. So it's not really quantitative, because the formula isn't.
 
Here are some basic comparisons of Toronto and Chicago:

NUMBER OF HIGHRISES (12 FLOORS OR GREATER)

Toronto 1662
Chicago 1054

AVERAGE HEIGHT OF HIGHRISES IN FLOORS

Toronto 18.58
Chicago 23.84

TOTAL NUMBER OF HIGHRISE FLOORS (only the 12th floor and up of each highrise)

Toronto 12601
Chicago 13537

TOTAL 'HIGHRISE RATING' (12th floor gets 12 points, 13th floor gets 13 points ... 108th floor gets 108 points) OF ALL HIGHRISE FLOORS

Toronto 650359
Chicago 751255

I deliberately went with the most fundamental comparisons I could think of, and tried to avoid arbitrary formulae. I hope that this information is useful when comparing the Toronto and Chicago built forms.

Bill
 
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