World's Tallest Buildings In 2020

The Atlantic Cities:

By 2020, according to the council's accompanying report, nine buildings will eclipse (or nearly break) the "megatall" barrier of roughly 2,000 feet (or 600 meters) — twice the height of the Eiffel Tower. As a point of comparison with today's skyscrapers, consider that the Petronas Towers, which were the tallest in the world when completed in 1998, will rank just 27th when 2020 arrives. In the words of the council's report, "600 m seems to be the new 300 m." Likewise, 300 meters (or 984 feet) seems to be the new snowman: by 2020 an estimated 198 towers will reach that height, compared to just 15 in 1995. All but one of the towers on the top 20 list will be built in the Middle East or Asia. The lone representative from the Western hemisphere will be One World Trade Center, which will scrape sky at a patriotic 1,776 feet (or a less patriotic 541 meters) with its radio antenna. (Which, by the way, why are skyscrapers allowed to include antennas in their height? If reaching my hand upward counted in my height I'd be playing center for the Knicks.) China leads the list with ten of the towers in seven different cities — the tallest being the Ping An Finance Center, in Shenzhen, at 2,165 feet (660 meters).
The tallest tower in the works is the Kingdom Tower in Jeddah, a city on the western coast of Saudi Arabia. The tower will soar to 3,280 feet (over 1,000 meters), making it more than 500 feet taller than the world's current champion, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Built at a cost of $1.2 billion, the completed Kingdom Tower will be a mixed-use facility that includes a luxury hotel, luxury condominiums, and office space, in addition to the world's highest observatory. It will also boast "one of the world's most sophisticated elevator systems," according Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill, the project's lead architect [PDF] — with observatory elevators reaching speeds of 10 meters per second, or over 22 miles per hour.

Wow.  So the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere will be 12th overall?  I've stood beside the Sears Tower (ok, Willis Tower) and just can't imagine buildings more than twice as tall.  I'm not sure why Bin Laden was so hellbent on knocking down tall buildings in the U.S. when the tallest building in the world is in Dubai.  I guess it doesn't matter now.