China’s small cities barred from reaching for the stars with sky scraping vanity projects
China has put limits on smaller cities, restricting their ability to build “super high-rise buildings”, for fear of indulging in too many vanity projects.
The country, home to the largest number of tall buildings in the world, has already banned buildings taller than 500 metres – which joins another ban on “ugly architecture” from earlier this year.
The limit hits cities with populations fewer than three million, with the desire to construct a tower larger than 150 metres, which is nearly 500ft, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Rural development and the Ministry of Emergency Management confirmed earlier this week.
Cities with larger populations will be able to build skyscrapers up to 250 metres tall, but no higher.
There is room for special exemptions however, leaving a city with less than three million residents able to build a scraper higher than 150 metres – but Beijing stipulated that these must not be any higher than 250 metres.
Similarly, cities with populations over three million can build taller than 250 metres, but are strictly barred from buildings over 500m.