Will China fall victim to the skyscraper curse?

A developer just broke ground on what is set to become tallest building in the world — and some see it as a terrible omen

Construction Shanghai
(Image credit: REUTERS/Aly Song)

Earlier this month, Chinese real estate developer the Broad Group broke ground on Sky City, a planned skyscraper on the outskirts of Changsha, China, that less than 10 months from now is set to tower 2,749 feet in the air — overtaking the Burj Khalifa in Dubai as the world's tallest building.

Almost as soon as the plan was announced, however, members of the press warned that China was in danger of running afoul of the Skyscraper Index, a 15-year-old theory that correlates the construction of the world's tallest buildings with major economic catastrophe.

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Carmel Lobello is the business editor at TheWeek.com. Previously, she was an editor at DeathandTaxesMag.com.