Sky-high building boom sprouts in nation

The eastern Chinese city of Suzhou is not even the biggest in Jiangsu province, but it's joining a national rush for the sky with what's slated to become the world's third-tallest building.

By 2020, China may be home to six of the world's 10 highest skyscrapers, including Suzhou's 700-meter Zhongnan Center. Developers finished 37 structures higher than 200 meters, or about 50 stories, in China last year, the most in the world, according to the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, a nonprofit organization that maintains the world's largest free database on tall buildings.

China is witnessing a skyscraper boom, with lower-tier cities like Suzhou vying to erect ever-bigger structures and counting on the prestige and potential commercial benefit those mega-buildings might bring. Construction has been fueled by a tripling in property values since 1998 and government policy that has moved 300 million people - almost the entire population of the United States - into cities since 1995.