Tower Crane Trends Q1 2020 to Q1 2023

I am a huge fan of the Rider Levett Bucknall quarterly tower crane data drop. Tower crane counts are a sign of construction economic activity. Based on this one metric (and my own travels), things are pretty hot in Seattle, Los Angeles and Denver. While the skylines of LA and Seattle are certainly dominated by tower cranes, the undisputed king of North America is Toronto, which clocked 252 in Q1 2022 (compared to 203 in the cities listed below during the same quarter).

Based on an average of three quarter's worth of data (Q1 for 2021, 2022 and 2023), 50% of US tower cranes are on residential projects, 21% mixed-use and 13% commercial and the balance on other types of projects.