New England Skylines thread

That's one of those places that would look better if literally nothing had been built after 1950. Looking at that picture and knowing that the only "tall" buildings are low income housing is kind of a stark reminder that despite all of its assets, it's never going to be the place that it could be.

I understand your point, especially Meliville Towers. The tallest, Regency Tower, is actually not low income. It might be a small skyline but it's all we got here! ;)
 
A lot of small cities' tallest buildings are public housing towers. This signifies bad planning.
 
^^^ And a non-existent economy, thus no demand for anything else.

Exactly. Or at least an economy that is not interested in building tall (such as small cities like Burlington).
 
^^^ And a non-existent economy, thus no demand for anything else.

I grew up in the Worcester area and go back a lot. I would say "non-existent" is strong, but it seems there is more demand on the 495 belt in Marlborough and Westborough. They have had Boston Scientific, BJ's and Cumberland Farms move west for new HQ's in the recent past.

Edit: WPI and UMass Medical school have added some office space near their respective schools. WPI just north of downtown and UMass on the east side of the city. Not exactly Kenmore Square but good stuff for the city. I mean not new but recent.
 
I grew up in the Worcester area and go back a lot. I would say "non-existent" is strong, but it seems there is more demand on the 495 belt in Marlborough and Westborough. They have had Boston Scientific, BJ's and Cumberland Farms move west for new HQ's in the recent past.

Edit: WPI and UMass Medical school have added some office space near their respective schools. WPI just north of downtown and UMass on the east side of the city. Not exactly Kenmore Square but good stuff for the city. I mean not new but recent.

That comment was more directed at New Bedford and its Fall River/Lawrence/Brockton peers than Hartford/Providence/Worcester. Those three have their obvious shortcomings but don't seem nearly as badly off.
 
That comment was more directed at New Bedford and its Fall River/Lawrence/Brockton peers than Hartford/Providence/Worcester. Those three have their obvious shortcomings but don't seem nearly as badly off.

The conversation originally stemmed from "Which cities have public housing as their tallest building?" Lawrence, New Bedford, and Fall River, Brockton all have public housing among their tallest towers while Worcester, Springfield and Hartford have office towers.
 
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Facsinating! In 10 years Burlington might overtake Springfeild!

I kind of hope not. It's a city of only 40,000 people, and while I do look forward to this development, tall buildings are not what make a great city. Keep it dense, but don't try to make it in to something it's not or shouldn't be.
 
The conversation originally stemmed from "Which cities have public housing as their tallest building?" Lawrence, New Bedford, and Fall River, Brockton all have public housing among their tallest towers while Worcester, Springfield and Hartford have office towers.

In Portland, the tallest habitable building is public housing (mainly elder housing), while the tallest building period is the steeple on the Cathedral.
 
I kind of hope not. It's a city of only 40,000 people, and while I do look forward to this development, tall buildings are not what make a great city. Keep it dense, but don't try to make it in to something it's not or shouldn't be.

You make a good point. I'd like it to become big, but flat. If it ended up like a bigger Biddeford, ME, I'd be happy.
 
I can't tell if this is a joke or not. Burlington obviously blows Biddeford out of the water on all fronts, but that said Biddeford had really come extremely far in recent years (some nice re-use of the inner core, which has very attractive architecture in sections). Biddeford may not become a destination anytime soon, but it appears to be shaping up to be a cool urban alternative to Portland for certain demographics. Perhaps not analogous to Lowell-Boston, but that's the best example I could think of to compare it to. Personally while I am excited by some of the renderings in Burlington (and the project by and large remains quite small scaled), I don't particularly like the design overall and would like to see something better.
 
I can't tell if this is a joke or not. Burlington obviously blows Biddeford out of the water on all fronts, but that said Biddeford had really come extremely far in recent years (some nice re-use of the inner core, which has very attractive architecture in sections). Biddeford may not become a destination anytime soon, but it appears to be shaping up to be a cool urban alternative to Portland for certain demographics. Perhaps not analogous to Lowell-Boston, but that's the best example I could think of to compare it to. Personally while I am excited by some of the renderings in Burlington (and the project by and large remains quite small scaled), I don't particularly like the design overall and would like to see something better.

No, I'm not joking. I mean like Biddeford's architecture and feel. Not it's economy.
 
On the 5:30 report tonight WCSH did a report on how South Portland planning department is considering a change in the city's zoning to allow for buildings up to 14 floors.
 
On the 5:30 report tonight WCSH did a report on how South Portland planning department is considering a change in the city's zoning to allow for buildings up to 14 floors.

Wow. South Portland isn't technically part of Portland though, is it?
 
No, it's a separate city.

But it borders, though, so tall buildings would fit into the skyline, sort of like how the Hancock sits far off from the High-rises in downtown.
 
It's not as close as Back Bay to the Financial District (or if it is, it's separated by much more suburbia) so it wouldn't have the same look. It's not as though this is the part of South Portland across the harbor from Portland which appears from aerials to be part of the same city. This is out by the shopping mall and is in a very unurban area. Strange place to propose such a tall building by itself but the concept in general is a good one (more density).

Trivial fact: Portland and SoPo considered merging once, over a century ago, but something at the State Legislature level stopped it.
 
I left out Cambridge. What does everyone think?
boston_may_2011_metroscenes.com_38.jpg


It would be better if Cambridge's high-rises were clustered, instead of scattered around the city. It would have a much better skyline if there weren't 50 of them squeezed into a city.
 

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