33 cranes in the sky make Mississauga one of busiest construction zones in North America

It looks like only two cities in all of North America have more construction cranes in the sky than Mississauga.

With 33 cranes in operation as of Sept. 27, all busy working on residential developments, it would seem Mississauga trails only Toronto and Seattle on that front.

According to the latest information from the Rider Levett Bucknall biannual Crane Index, which tracks the number of operating tower cranes in 14 major Canadian and American cities, Toronto leads the way by a wide margin in North America once again with 240 large cranes on job sites as of August 2023.

Seattle is second, with 45 cranes, while Los Angeles placed third among cities included in the RLB rankings, with 30 operating cranes as of late summer.

Mississauga’s 33 cranes, a drop-off from its record 39 earlier this year, appear to place Canada’s seventh-largest city third on the most-recent list.

However, that’s an unofficial ranking as Mississauga isn’t included in the RLB studies. Additionally, it’s not widely known how many cranes are operating in other large North American cities that, like Mississauga, aren’t part of the RLB Crane Index.

Toronto (238 cranes) also led the way by a significant margin in RLB’s previous rankings back in the spring of this year. In fact, the top four cities on the list have remained unchanged in terms of ranking.

Seattle had 51 cranes in the sky earlier this year to place second while Los Angeles had 47.

Denver, fourth in the latest rankings with 24 cranes in operation, had 36 in spring 2023.

The remaining cities included in the latest RLB rankings are:

• Boston, 20
• Calgary, 19
• Washington, D.C., 18
• Portland, 14
• Honolulu, 12
• San Francisco, 11
• Chicago, 9
• Las Vegas, 9
• New York, 8
• Phoenix, 7

According to an RLB release, the crane index provides a quick snapshot of the current state of the construction industry’s activity at each location.

RLB says its index was the first of its kind and offers a simplified measure of the state of the construction industry’s workload.

The RLB crane count has been conducted twice a year since its inception in 2018. Toronto’s 2023 numbers appear particularly impressive given that no other city has topped 60 cranes at any one point in the five years since the index was launched.