A couple of days ago, while I was doing my daily assessment of the Freedom Tower’s progress (today’s assessment: belligerent), I discovered that once completed, it will be the second tallest building in America. I was shocked they couldn’t build something taller than the Sears Tower in Chicago. Is liberty, and pain, and triumph, not enough to topple couches, blenders and mattress delivery? Actually, turns out it is. It’s something called the Chicago Spire that we can’t quite beat.

The spire is a twister of a structure that’s being built in Chicago as we speak (that’s it to the left). It’s alien aura is made even more disquieting by it’s purely residential status. People are going to live in that thing? All of it? It reminds me of those twister popsicles I still enjoy from time to time, without the fruity flavors. Donald Trump opposed the building, claiming it would be an easy target for terrorists, unlike the Trump International Hotel and Tower he’s building just a few blocks west, which is terror-proof.

The Spire would become the tallest building in the world, were it not for the boundless ambitions of Dubai, who are building something called the Burj Dubai, an atmosphere-jabbing scraper that rockets above the rest of the city. It’s terrifyingly tall and reduces the rest of the once noble Dubai skyline into puny servants. It’s also a middle finger to the rest of the architectural world. Go big or go home. These buildings (and this one) mean that the skylines promised to us by science fiction are upon us, and I for one, am terrified. To learn more about skylines, and for a calculated ranking of the world's best, head here.