# One Mile High Skyscraper-Is It Feasible? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 13, 2002, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-mile-high-skyscraper-is-it-feasible/118780 "2002-07-13T14:16:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2002, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-mile-high-skyscraper-is-it-feasible/118780/21 "2002-07-14T21:04:53Z")
And we could call it the Mirage Tower! And we could have it link to the space station! (FF 1 reference ;)) ---
**Author:** ![lucwarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e19adc/32.png) [@lucwarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lucwarm)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2002, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-mile-high-skyscraper-is-it-feasible/118780/22 "2002-07-14T22:56:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by owlofcreamcheese \* > \*\*I always thought they should build a single sky scraper out in a desert or something. make it a vertical city. lots of houseing lots of entertainment. make it sorta a vertical los vegas. it would be a gimick, but a cool one. make it totally self contained… and HUGE… way out in the desert (ahem… golden saucer from final fantasy 7) make the outside elaborate really elaborate… > > I think a single tower in a totally flat desert… would be a scary impressive sight. \*\* Yeah, that would be cool. There’s a building in Durham, North Carolina known as the “Phallus from Dallas” that has a bit of this aspect to it. (Very tall building in the middle of nowhere). ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-mile-high-skyscraper-is-it-feasible/118780/23 "2002-07-15T03:08:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by TridCloudwalker \* > **Building skyscrapers any higher would be uneconomical and pointless he said…** Yeah, but it would be _COOL…_ 🆒 😃 And really, what better reason IS there for constructing a massive technological marvel? Ranchoth ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-mile-high-skyscraper-is-it-feasible/118780/24 "2002-07-15T03:59:03Z")
> [@](#): > > A mile-high tower would be more core than office/living space. Not if you keep the height-width proportions right. The thing is, engineers should focus on making buildings _larger_, not just taller. Increase their footprint and you’ll avoid a lot of the problems you described. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-mile-high-skyscraper-is-it-feasible/118780/25 "2002-07-15T06:50:45Z")
Let’s face it - it’s just not _intelligent_ to build gigantic buildings that do not serve an economic purpose. This isn’t going to the moon, or doing basic research - there’s no humanitarian benefit to building a humongous structure. It would just be ‘cool’. But I’d want a hell of a lot better reason than that if it were my money being spent. And in the post-9/11 era, the risk of terrorism has to be factored in to any analysis. There are other, better ways to increase living density if we want to. Condominiums, structures of medium-rise buildings with interconnected walkways, high-speed transportation between communities, etc. This allows us to keep infrastructure like parking and mechanical and transportation arteries at ground level where they are most efficient and inexpensive, while housing people in very high densities. ---
**Author:** ![Babar714](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Babar714](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babar714)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-mile-high-skyscraper-is-it-feasible/118780/26 "2002-07-15T09:51:12Z")
Lucwarm, that reminds me of the Wachovia building in down-town Winston-Salem. Everyone just calles it “The Penis Building”. I guess they’re just not as clever in WS. From what I understand, one of the problems with a building this tall is that the weight on the basement support structure would be so extreme that it would generate a tremendous amount of heat. Though I imagine a conical or pyramidal, or Eiffel Tower type design would disperse the weight. So a building a mile high would probably have a freakin’ HUGE ground area. We may have to put it in the middle of the desert. ---
**Author:** ![Boo\_Boo\_Foo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@Boo\_Boo\_Foo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boo_Boo_Foo)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-mile-high-skyscraper-is-it-feasible/118780/27 "2002-07-15T13:36:11Z")
G’day guys… I live on the waterfront on a beautiful quiet little bay not far south of Brisbane, Australia. My patio opens up onto a grassy lawn and a private beach and each morning the inshore dolphins swim by. Next door is a sailing club and behind me is a park and to my right is some more park. Across the water is a lovely island called Crab Island because, you guessed, you can catch LOTS of crabs there to eat. When I look out across my view, I can look in either direction for 180 degrees and not see any lights - just lovely virgin trees which will never get built on. And yet, I’m in a lovely metropolis with every possible modern convenience I could ask for just 1 mile down the street. I think I’ve locked my back bedroom patio door maybe 3 times in the last 5 years. I’m no hippy either. In fact, I’m a systems analyst by trade and I spend all day on the net talking to fine intelligent folks just like you guys. I design database systems which work over the web and I have employees who work in an office, but we don’t always go into the office - only if we need to. So, with all due respect to the fine engineering knowledge on display here, but you know what I think when I read questions like this? Ummmm… yeah… go for it if you want… but holy f\*\*k, somebody would have to have rocks in their head if they seriously thought that was a cool way to live… Anyways… gotta go… I think the fish are biting… ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-mile-high-skyscraper-is-it-feasible/118780/28 "2002-07-15T13:40:47Z")
Right, if someone likes different things than you they must have rocks in their head. I for one would absolutely love to live on the 400th floor. So chill out. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Boo\_Boo\_Foo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@Boo\_Boo\_Foo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boo_Boo_Foo)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-mile-high-skyscraper-is-it-feasible/118780/29 "2002-07-15T13:50:45Z")
Achernar, that’s my point. By the very nature of my home, or anyone else who lives in similar circumstances, I am chilled. I can walk out onto the sand and kick my toes in the water with my little daughter. I don’t HAVE to get in an elevator to walk thru my front door. Historically, the only reason massive buildings were built was to make travel distances between commercial interests more efficient. The world is changing. Human relationships are evolving into a far wider reach - as evidenced by this very conversation. I’ll glady concede I was smarmy, and probably unbearably so - and I do apologise - but I did so to demonstrate a point. Namely, with high density confinement comes another syndrome - a crushing of the human spirit and sense of disenfranchisement with the world itself. The more humans you pack into a given area, the more lonely you become. It’s a wonderful thing that I can communicate daily with Americans and Europeans while I watch the boats go by. The nature of commerce itself is evolving to accomodate such lifestyles methinks. ---
**Author:** ![av8rmike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/edb3f5/32.png) [@av8rmike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/av8rmike)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-mile-high-skyscraper-is-it-feasible/118780/30 "2002-07-15T14:01:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by LolaCocaCola \* > \*\*The skyscrapers on Minority Report were a mile high. 😃 \*\* Apparently the Hollywood producers assumed that the building height restrictions in Washington would no longer exist. I’ve read some bizarre ideas about massive structures built out of things like carbon filaments (See Arthur C Clarke’s 3001) but again you’re talking science fiction. I think Frank Lloyd Wright’s ideas were born out of the post-nuclear era of the 50’s when they seriously believed the 21st century would look like Coruscant and people would want to live out their lives in a single building. Apparently they never thought people would want to move out of the cities. ---
**Author:** ![Starbury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f04885/32.png) [@Starbury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starbury)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-mile-high-skyscraper-is-it-feasible/118780/31 "2002-07-15T15:04:05Z")
In the most recent issue of Popular Mechanics, they talk about building an elevator from earth to a space platform (specifically, a lab built on an asteroid that’s high enough in Earth’s orbit to have minimal gravity). Not the same thing as a skyscraper, granted, but I think the mechanics are similar enough. Anyway, they said the biggest problem with high buildings is that most materials, even if they can resist high tensions, can’t resist a lot of compression forces, and end up folding under their own weight. As **Bryan Ekers** mentioned, the best possibility for really high buildings will be to build them out of materials developed with nanotechnology. NASA recently held a forum about this, and they felt that the best material would be a carbon material that is 100 times as strong as steel. NASA has been looking into areas where they would build such an elevator, and I think currently they’re focusing on the galapagos islands. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-mile-high-skyscraper-is-it-feasible/118780/32 "2002-07-15T18:21:50Z")
> [@](#): > > This allows us to keep infrastructure like parking and mechanical and transportation arteries at ground level where they are most efficient and inexpensive, while housing people in very high densities. What happens when we get flying cars? Yeah, yeah, I know, there are tons of engineering problems to overcome before flying cars go mainstream. (Engine failure on the interstate = coast to a stop, maybe get rear-ended, tie up traffic. Engine failure in a flying car = plummet to earth go boom.) Does anybody really think it’s an unattainable goal? So what happens when the roadway is no longer two-dimensional? When I can set my navbot to slide me into the high lane and park me against the side of my building at the 350-story level, a quick escalator ride from my 354th-floor apartment, doesn’t that hugely reduce the amount of space inside the building required for elevator traffic? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-mile-high-skyscraper-is-it-feasible/118780/33 "2002-07-15T19:40:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Exapno Mapcase \* > We live in too fluid a society for everyone who works in a building to live there as well. (I think the latest statistic is that a total equal to one-sixth of the population moves each year.) People change jobs, have families, go to school, get transferred, die. And you just can’t put up a building and then expect everyone who finds a job there to uproot themselves and move into the building just to make it work more efficiently. Family Discussion in New New York, c. 2130: Junior: But I don’t _wanna_ move to the 500 level. all my friends are down here on 300. Father: Now now, son. You’ll make new and better friends on 500. Junoir: Can I come back and visit? Father: No. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2002, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-mile-high-skyscraper-is-it-feasible/118780/34 "2002-07-16T05:00:02Z")
There will never be flying cars. The atmosphere is fluid - roadways are not. Even in three dimensions, you could never safely pack even 1% of a city’s traffic into the air. Not when each one requires a cubic mile of space around it to keep it from slamming into other things. There will always be bad weather. And when there is, you would rather be anchored to the ground. So even if you’re positing a future with nanotechnological aviation wonders with computer guidance systems and redundant systems that the average person can afford, they’ll still be buffeted by the weather. That alone makes them impractical for commuting en masse. ---
**Author:** ![Tristan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tristan/32/18058_2.png) [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2002, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-mile-high-skyscraper-is-it-feasible/118780/35 "2002-07-16T11:01:58Z")
Sam- they said the same thing about cars. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2002, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-mile-high-skyscraper-is-it-feasible/118780/36 "2002-07-16T11:47:58Z")
**Tristan:** There’s a big difference between cars and flying cars. If something goes wrong with your Chevy, you’re already on the ground. ---
**Author:** ![Neptune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5a626/32.png) [@Neptune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neptune)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2002, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-mile-high-skyscraper-is-it-feasible/118780/37 "2002-07-16T14:51:02Z")
Anyone heard of this 2222 ft tower being built in India? [http://www.cosmicsoftwareindia.com/Maharishi\_Group/Tallest\_Building/tallest\_building.html](http://www.cosmicsoftwareindia.com/Maharishi_Group/Tallest_Building/tallest_building.html) [http://www.tmprogram-li.org/old%20pages/World\_tallest.htm](http://www.tmprogram-li.org/old%20pages/World_tallest.htm) [http://www.natural-law-party.org.uk/pressreleases/INT-19981106-Tallest-building.htm](http://www.natural-law-party.org.uk/pressreleases/INT-19981106-Tallest-building.htm) ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2002, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-mile-high-skyscraper-is-it-feasible/118780/38 "2002-07-16T17:10:20Z")
Forget one giant building… what you want to do is build a lot of reasonably big-assed buildings and LINK them. Damn, I love Montreal. ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2002, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-mile-high-skyscraper-is-it-feasible/118780/39 "2002-07-16T21:25:04Z")
You do realize that there are already skyscrapers built a mile high don’t you? | | | V Any building built in a place like Denver is by definition…😉 ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2002, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-mile-high-skyscraper-is-it-feasible/118780/40 "2002-07-16T21:56:49Z")
A severe problem with really huge residential/commercial buildings (as opposed to a CN Tower) is heat. People, lights, computers, etc. all generate heat. You start running into the cube vs. square problem. Volume (and occupancy/contents) increase by the cube while surface area to disperse it grows by the square. Already some skyscrapers have no separate heating system. Some of the lights on the outside are left on to generate heat on cold nights. The air conditioning runs continuously. A mile high skyscraper would be impossible to cool. (The same is true with a Death Star. I’ve seen analyses that prove that a Death Star would cook its occupants.) You could add a lot of extra surface area (giant cooling fins) but the costs are already ridiculous and then there’s the view being ruined. The Laws of Thermodynamics will always get you in the end. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-mile-high-skyscraper-is-it-feasible/118780.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-mile-high-skyscraper-is-it-feasible/118780.md?page=3)