Importance Of Skyscrapers

How Important are Skyscrapers? Are we going too high? Is using the sky the only solution? Most people think that building skyscrapers is a must, while others think that building them is worthless. “Skyscrapers are, literally, prominent features of many cities. They are increasingly dominating urban skylines around the world” (Neil & Sun-Young, 2010, p.333). “The first buildings described as skyscrapers were constructed in New York and Chicago more than 100 years ago” (Neil & Sun-Young, 2010, p.333), which makes skyscrapers long-standing and ancient. While skyscrapers present some issues, these buildings are important infrastructures in modern cities due to their ability to promote local benefits and to their capacity to create more space.

“For some tourists, a famous skyscraper (e.g. the ESB) can be the nucleus of an attraction, and for a proportion of these people, seeing it can be an influential factor in the decision to visit a city”(Neil & Sun-Young, 2010, p.337). Skyscrapers seduce many tourists from all around the world, which leads to an increase of the country’s benefits. In fact, the most visited countries nowadays are those having the tallest and the most attractive skyscrapers; “large cities are the most visited tourist destinations: Beijing and Shanghai in China, Bangkok in Thailand, New York in the USA, etc.”(Neil & Sun-Young, 2010, p.334). Cities sited above have one of the best economies nowadays due to tourism. As important as attracting tourists, skyscrapers are source of tax for city government. In fact, the maintenance cost of a skyscraper is high, so the people living inside a skyscraper should pay

In fact, due to the significant increase of the world population nowadays, lands are becoming very rare. So “using the sky” is the only solution to avoid shortage of land resources. Skyscrapers have the ability of supporting many floors, vertically, with large spaces. “These buildings often house a large number of residences and a great amount of personal assets” (Chen, Xinzheng, Hong & Zhen, 2016, p.1048), which means that these buildings can replace many residences and small buildings that usually take a lot of space when constructed. Skyscrapers can be used in many small countries (like Lebanon) that have a shortage in land resource. Otherwise, people living in these tiny countries have no other choice than to leave their country. “In addition, tall buildings are also widely used as offices, hospitals, commercial/financial centers, and communication/electricity hubs, which are vital to the functioning of a city” (Chen, Xinzheng, Hong & Zhen, 2016, p.1048), skyscrapers are not just used as a home for individuals; they are mainly used for offices, commercial centers and hospitals as well, thus having more and more spaces. Is there any other way to solve the problem of land resource