List Of Tallest Structures In The United States
The height of structures in the United States has historically been poorly documented. However the data is a matter of public record, appearing in documents maintained by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
This list is populated heavily by antenna masts. The engineering aspects of super-tall masts are highly specialized. Only four companies erect the majority of such structures: Doty Moore Tower Services (Cedar Hill, Texas); Kline Towers (Columbia, South Carolina); LeBlanc Royal Telecom (Oakville, Ontario); and Stainless Inc. (North Wales, Pennsylvania). The design and construction are largely governed by RS222E Electronic Industries Alliance standards. A 1,000 ft (305 m) mast costs between $0.7 and $1.1 million to build, while a 2,000 ft (610 m) mast costs $2.4 to $4 million. Prices generally vary depending on tower capacity and wind loading specifications.
A common misperception is that landmarks such as the Stratosphere Tower are the tallest United States structures, but they are in fact the tallest buildings. Likewise Taipei 101 was often misrepresented as the world's tallest structure (although it was the tallest occupied building, before the certification of Dubai's Burj Khalifa as such), but in fact is far eclipsed by antenna towers in over a dozen states in the United States and in other countries.
In the United States, the FAA and the FCC must approve all towers exceeding 200 ft (61 m) high. Furthermore, it is very difficult to get permission for structures over 2,000 ft (610 m) high. The FCC presumes them to be inconsistent with the public interest, while the FAA presumes them to be a hazard to air navigation, resulting in poor airspace usage. A significant burden of proof is placed on the applicant to show that such a structure is in the public's best interests. Only when both agencies have resolved all legal, safety, and management concerns is such an application approved.
Since 1978 the United States has maintained eleven tethered aerostats sites along the southern borders. These balloons rise to 18,000 ft (5,500 m), carrying radar units for drug interdiction purposes. However since the balloons are aided by buoyancy and are not permanent they are not considered true structures.
Read more about List Of Tallest Structures In The United States: Puerto Rico, By Structural Type
Famous quotes containing the words list of, united states, list, tallest, structures, united and/or states:
“Every morning I woke in dread, waiting for the day nurse to go on her rounds and announce from the list of names in her hand whether or not I was for shock treatment, the new and fashionable means of quieting people and of making them realize that orders are to be obeyed and floors are to be polished without anyone protesting and faces are to be made to be fixed into smiles and weeping is a crime.”
—Janet Frame (b. 1924)
“The United States is not a nation to which peace is a necessity.”
—Grover Cleveland (1837–1908)
“A man’s interest in a single bluebird is worth more than a complete but dry list of the fauna and flora of a town.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“But not the tallest there, ‘tis said,
Could fathom to this pond’s black bed.”
—Edmund Blunden (1896–1974)
“The American who has been confined, in his own country, to the sight of buildings designed after foreign models, is surprised on entering York Minster or St. Peter’s at Rome, by the feeling that these structures are imitations also,—faint copies of an invisible archetype.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The white American man makes the white American woman maybe not superfluous but just a little kind of decoration. Not really important to turning around the wheels of the state. Well the black American woman has never been able to feel that way. No black American man at any time in our history in the United States has been able to feel that he didn’t need that black woman right against him, shoulder to shoulder—in that cotton field, on the auction block, in the ghetto, wherever.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)
“[N]o combination of dictator countries of Europe and Asia will halt us in the path we see ahead for ourselves and for democracy.... The people of the United States ... reject the doctrine of appeasement.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)