"If you look at all of the world's tallest buildings, they were opened at a time when the world was facing an economic downturn," Antony Wood, executive director of the Council on Tall Buildings and the Urban Habitat, told the Epoch Times.
Ten years ago, economist Andrew Lawrence suggested that it was possible to predict an economic downturn by noticing the creation of a new record-breaking skyscraper.
His theory, dubbed the "skyscraper index" or the "skyscraper curse," has been given a fresh airing among columnists after the Burj Khalifa’s unveiling.
The Dubai government is believed to have a debt of US$59 billion, and has twice approached its oil-rich neighbor, the city of Abu Dhabi, for a bailout package.
Some 80 years ago, when initial excavations for the Empire State Building began, the U.S. was plunged into the Great Depression and the stock market crash of 1973–1974 came two years after opening of the World Trade Center in New York.
Some say that the correlation goes as far back as the Tower of Babel, which the Burj Khalifa has already been likened to in hubris.
"If you are going to think about building the world's tallest building, chances are you will do so when times are good for the economy," he said.
"By the time the tower is built, it is likely that the economy is in a very different state to when the tower was originally conceived."
Burj Khalifa at a Glance:
59: distance in miles at which the spire can be seen
1,653.5: rise in feet of its main service elevator
57: number of elevators
49: number of office floors
1,044: number of residential apartments
900: length in feet of the fountain at the foot of the tower, the world's tallest performing fountain
28,261: number of glass cladding panels on the exterior of the tower
