Seattle still has most cranes in the sky, more than 3 years running

Crane dot the skyline of South Lake Union where Amazon and other companies are building at breakneck speeds. That's just part of what's made Seattle the U.S. city with the most cranes in the sky more than three years running.GENNA MARTIN, SEATTLEPI.COM

Seattle is a city undergoing change, and nowhere is that clearer than our skyline, which remains speckled with cranes.

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And now the city has notched another peak according to the latest report by Rider Levett Bucknall, which counts cranes in big cities across the world: more construction cranes than any other U.S. city. Again.

The previous twice-yearly report from Rider Levett Bucknall, came out in July, when Seattle had 65 cranes in the sky, the most in any U.S. city for three years running.

Though the full report is due next week, January's Crane Index shows a slight dip for Seattle; we only have 59 cranes up now. That's still well above the next U.S. city -- Los Angeles with 44 -- but trailing Toronto with 104 cranes.

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After Los Angeles in the U.S. crane count comes Portland, San Francisco, New York and Washington, D.C. (click through the slideshow above to see how many are in each city). Internationally, cities in Australia and the Middle East have well over 100 cranes -- in July, Dubai was clocked at having more than 1,000 cranes (or, about 20 percent of the world's cranes, by some measures).

Much of Seattle's cranes are focused in the downtown core of Seattle, including and especially South Lake Union, which continues to change rapidly.

And while that's resulted in some new high rises with glitzy apartments, Seattle's place as one of the most stable economies in the country has also created quite a market for new offices. Especially as Amazon continues to snap up downtown real estate.

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Amazon is Seattle's biggest tenant. See where the online giant is located throughout the city in the following gallery.
Google Maps

According to the Rider Levett Bucknall, the focus is in the mixture of residential and commercial: 25 of the cranes are designated for "mixed-use," while 15 are for "residential" and "commerical" is working with 10 cranes.

Everything else trailed behind those:

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- Education: 1
- Healthcare: 1
- Hospitality: 3
- Industrial: 1
- Transportation: 2
- Other: 1

The city limits, as defined by the RLB Crane Index, are Lake Washington west to Elliott Bay, and from Northgate to Boeing Field. So Bellevue, with its own dozen or so cranes, doesn't even factor into Seattle's numbers.

Either way, this index by Rider Levett Bucknall marks yet another bi-annual notch in Seattle's continued boom.