Abstract
Since 1978, when China enacted economic reforms, cities all around China have encouraged the construction of skyscrapers. China has witnessed significant urbanization, as evidenced by the rise in the percentage of residents living in cities from 41% in 2004 to just over 60% in 2019 (Lu, 2022). It is believed that building high-rise structures is a common method to effectively develop urban land, which is becoming scarce over time since more people are choosing to relocate from rural areas to cities, and this has raised the demand for offices and residential spaces. However, up until now, there is little doubt that the growth of Chinese metropolitan skylines has exceeded the speed of urbanization. China has dominated the skyscraper market for the past 20 years. Having around 40 of the top 100 tallest buildings in the world and more than 2,500 constructions taller than 100 meters, it has outnumbered all the countries throughout the world. As per Li and Wang (2020), the increasing heights of the new buildings—at least six of which have broken records since the late 1980s—also demonstrated the country's extraordinary skyscraper growth. Since this enormous passion for skyscrapers cannot possibly be explained by urbanization, the question of whether China has constructed too many skyscrapers naturally arises.