Higher and higher vanities

Within just seven months, a new skyscraper named Sky City is aiming to top the 828-meter-high Burj Khalifa in Dubai, currently the world's tallest building, by 10 meters.

But the choice of city may surprise some. While the world's iconic towers usually rise above the skylines of New York, Hong Kong or Shanghai, it is in a suburb of Changsha, the capital of Central China's Hunan Province, that Sky City will be built.

The ground-breaking ceremony was held at the construction site in the village of Huilong in Wangcheng district on July 20. Zhang Yue, CEO of local construction firm Broad Group who landed at the site in a helicopter, announced that the construction of the tower would be finished in April next year and would be ready for use in May or June.

As the project's ad video on the group's website shows, the skyscraper aims to top out at 838 meters. The plan is for Sky City to have 202 floors and a total area of over 1 million square meters, which would allow it to accommodate 30,000 people in residences and offices.

The speed and scale of this project has led to many doubts about the project's feasibility and safety. Broad claims the skyscraper will be safe, capable of resisting earthquakes of up to 9.0 on the Richter scale.

As for the sensational speed of the project, Broad says it can achieve the construction within its allotted time frame by utilizing prefabricated modules to erect the superstructure. Broad has used this technology before, such as when it put up its pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai Expo in a single day. But still, a leap in scale to the magnitude of Sky City would be an enormous coup for the firm if they were to pull it off.

During the project, 20,000 workers will work in factories building the necessary components while 3,000 builders assemble the tower, according to Broad. Its initial stated cost of 9 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) would be similar to the cost of the Burj Khalifa or to both Petronas Towers in Malaysia.

Too many contradictions

However, if the building of Sky City proves to be the same roller-coaster ride as its planning, then all doubts would be well-founded. The sheer number of uncertainties, delays and oddly worded statements surrounding this ambitious project have left the public highly dubious.