One building in Shanghai is noticeably taller than any in New York City. The rest are not. In fact, 10 of the combined top 15 are in New York City (including 270 Park Ave which is under construction).
The point of my comparison wasn’t to demonstrate supertall count but rather the incredible difference in stature and aesthetics 1,000 feet makes compared to 2,000.
270 Park Avenue looks already massive. But when compared to Shanghai Tower, it makes 270 Park look puny a little. 
Shanghai Tower is pretty thick as well, and has a nice sloping design. That building is amazing, one of the Shanghai Trio (best trio of skyscrapers in the world).
I could imagine Shanghai Tower being the signature tower of NYC if it was placed there.
Certainly.
I love Shanghai Tower but I think the architecture would look so out of place in NYC. Of the truly tall towers out there, Ping An (especially the original design with the spire) is the one that really screams New York.
Not that we shouldn’t push for more avant-garde architecture, but I personally would like NYC’s tallest/signature tower to have a classic silhouette.
Yeah, it might be out of place since it stands out so much due to its amazing height unless it’s surrounded by towers that have similar material to it.
And I agree that the Ping An definitely screams New York due to its design. I could imagine being placed somewhere in Midtown. 
Indeed and while Shanghai has a great many buildings over 100 meters, it appears that the number of supertalls may not increase much beyond the trio of supertalls on Lujiazui/Pudong given the height limitations imposed by China’s government. One of the potential reasons for which may have been the problems with the economic viability of buildings such as Shanghai Tower (not because of its height, but I believe amongst others because the chosen construction method limited its floor space).
I expect about 30-50 more years of Chinese soft power. They are in the same place as America was in the 1920’s, with the mass of population, urban-rural divides and mass social bifurcation. However, they are a modernizing and industrializing country with lots going for them. There will, however, be a limit to their growth at some point, and we’re seeing the nascent starting phase of sentiment against dependence on China. China’s culture is also showing weakness, especially with the declining birthrates and lying flat phenomena. It hasn’t really shown up in a major way just yet, but we could experience the true emergence around the time their soft power expires in 30-50 years. By then, India could easily have emerged as their industrial replacement and Japan their replacement on the tech side of things. After that? Who knows.
I like Shanghai Tower because of its height. And its exterior design is kinda cool. But the dual-skin design is really bad for the views from the inside. It’s like going to a basketball game and having a screen between you and the court. It’s a real lack of foresight (or maybe they just didn’t care about people’s views.)
On a note in reply to the first post about Shanghai vs. NYC: New York has all the new pencil thin towers (Steinway, CPT and 432) that Shanghai doesn’t. Shanghai Tower is more like a Husky pencil.
I think the dual skin design was chosen for efficiency reasons
I’m guessing that’s an excuse made to save face for a poor design element.
1 Vanderbilt is bigger in the render, that when it was still 1,501? So annoying.
Also I didn’t know you could see One Manhattan West from this angle
Updated my Top Of The Rock rendering, now with 520 Fifth added and a more accurate height for 270:
Original Manhattan photos by Anthony Quintano and Dmitry B. (used under CC-BY 2.0)
Very nice! And we still have a lot of sites in ME to go!
Thank you
In the near future I will have to add 570 Fifth to this view, whichever design they end up going with. And in the distance you’d be able to see the Two Bridges skyscraper cluster.