You can tell a lot about a city based on the amount of cranes you see across the sky. Cranes equal progress and economic expansion. If you see a lot of them in a community- that community is growing. You can tell a lot about our economy based on what's growing and what's not. I've noticed cranes at most college campuses that I drive by. The number of young people going to college has increased in recent history and supply has to catch up with the demand.
I recently took part in a massive crane move. The construction company had just completed a job where they built a new plywood manufacturing plant in South Carolina. They had been on site for months, even getting the plant operational and shipping product before all work there was complete. Now it was time to move the crane back to Richmond, VA. I'm not sure how many trucks it took to move this crane as the operators were taking it down and shipping it in sections as quick as they could. I was one of seven trucks on scene, but there were others that left before I got there.
The boom sections are around 35' in length and typically loaded on top of the counter weights. The counter weights of this particular crane weighed 15K lbs per plate. The tracks weighed 36K lbs each, so I loaded one and another truck loaded the other. A removable goose neck (RGN) transported the crane cab. It was disassembled as far as possible and was still beyond legal dimensions thereby making it an oversized load.
As you travel across the country, start noticing the cranes that are erected and see what's being built. It's definitely an indicator of what's going on in our economy. I hope to see many more during these turbulent economic times as they create a lot of opportunity for me.