^^
This guy's right - it's not the
buildings (as such) that make the skyline look good - it
can be a number of things, including backdrop, foreground (whether it's flat or hilly), and then where the city is built in the first place; (in a valley, on flat ground, or on a hill). For instance;
Liverpool has substantially less tall buildings than that of Manchester; and yet, I would vote this skyline over Manchester any day !! What makes Liverpool's skyline so good is that there is water in the foreground (making a nice, flat surface so you can see over it for miles), a flat backdrop, (so that non of the buildings are shadowed over by hills or mountains), AND the backdrop is sky as well - so the buildings
stand out more. In Liverpool, it doesnt matter whether a certain building is 100m or 3m high, IT WILL BE SEEN ON THE SKYLINE !!
However, that in mind, i'm only talking about Liverpool's skyline from the waterfront. From behind, it's pretty poor to be honest.
Now let's look at Manchester's skyline. From this picture (yes I realize it was taken a while back) you can see that the city has much much more tall buildings than Liverpool. However, does the skyline look better ?? NO !!
That's because Manchester has a hilly foreground (so you can't actually get a good skyline shot in the first place) and a Hilly backdrop (making even Manchester's tallest buildings look overshadowed by gloomy hills in the background, which generally makes the skyline look weak).
If Manchester was built on a waterfront (like Liverpool) and had a flat backdrop (like Liverpool), JUST IMAGINE what the skyline would look like. It would be FANTASTIC !!