paul cardiffwalesmap wrote:Now I'm not a particular fan of American Football, however I watched last years superbowl and really enjoyed it and stuck with it to the end! Anyway that's not the point of this thread! As a matter of interest the rather impressive US Bank stadium is in Minneapolis which has a population not that much greater than Cardiff's (in fact our population could even be greater than there's in the not too distant future - although I'm sure the population of Minneapolis is projected to increase also). I was interested in the US Bank stadium and then noticed that Minneapolis had a very impressive skyline, so I wondered how big the city was? I thought at least 1million plus. Now I'm not saying that we will ever have such a dynamic skyline but it is nevertheless food for thought!! OK a bit skyscraper geek! but I'm sure Minneapolis isn't the only city that 'punches above it's weight on the skyline front!
I'm not all that familiar with that part of the U.S., but looking at Wikipedia and Google Maps I think it's part of a metropolis of 3.5 million people with it's neighbour St.Pauls's (300,000k) and then a fair few towns making up the rest of the 3.5million.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minneapolis%E2%80%93Saint_Paul
It's not unlike the Greater Boston area that I'm a bit more familiar with. Boston itself just under 700,000k but the heart of a metropolis with other smaller cities and towns such as Cambridge adding between 4-8 million depending on what boundary you are drawing.
I guess that Minneapolis skyline is that impressive is largely due to quite a few world or USA HQs of companies, but also some hotels and apartment blocks. Have a look at this list and the occupiers, over 20 buildings above 30 floors, quite a few above 40 and some above 50.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Minneapolis
It's where Cardiff's is lacking, we don't have many big employers that need that size of office, and our major development proposals on the whole are student housing led with the odd hotel. Sure we've had quite a few new offices go up, or about to go up that's taller than most offices built in the city over the last few years, but HMRC and Admiral being the biggest are just mid-rises at around 12 floors high.
It gives you some real perspective.