There’s a race on to build the tallest tower in the world. Currently in the lead: Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, at 828 meters. Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah Tower, projected to cost $1.2 billion and soar 1,000 meters high, will pass it and then some when it is completed in 2020. If Dubai wants to keep the title, it will need to add a spire or two to its new building dubbed simply “The Tower” which is slated to be 928 meters when it is completed in time for the World Expo 2020 to be hosted in Dubai. It’s not a coincidence that both Saudi Arabia and Dubai also fare badly on most measures of democracy.
A new working paper from researchers at the University of Oslo found that autocracies build more new skyscrapers than democracies, and the buildings they construct tend to be more excessive and wasteful than those built in democratic countries. A harsh autocracy builds 1.6 more skyscrapers each year on average than a high-scoring democracy. [...]
The paper also found that autocracies are more likely to build skyscrapers where there is little clear economic benefit. For instance, in democratic countries, skyscrapers are usually built only in urban settings, while autocratic governments will sometimes build skyscrapers in rural parts of their countries. Skyscrapers in autocratic governments also tend to have a high percentage of “vanity meters,” which is the distance from the highest occupied floor to the top of the building, often bolstered by constructing spires. For instance, 29% of the total height of the Burj Khalifa consists of vanity meters.
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