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Worldwide, there's only a few cities that beat us that aren't above our population class. Abu Dhabi and Doha come to mind. Panama City and Wuxi have taller skylines with only slightly higher populations.
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Just to comment on this part, Doha definitely has that striking dense core that compares to Calgary. Abu Dhabi, well, this place is a mixed bag. It has really tall buildings, but they're spread around the city. Yet, if you look at the density of small skyscrapers, it is impressive, but so many of them are older and almost falling apart. And then the visibility here almost always prevents one from seeing the whole skyline in one vista. Yesterday was one of the rare clear days you could see it from a distance.
Calgary is one of those cities where you land at the airport and see the downtown and go, "Holy crap!". The height and density of our city is impressive no matter what the population. It would be nice to borrow some of Abu Dhabi's talent.... it's so spread around that the total is less than the sum of its parts. I love many of the towers in this town.
Of course, Dubai has that reputation of having all the crazy skyscrapers, and it's really something to see, but it has the same "problem" as Abu Dhabi, where things are built all over the place. The marina district is crazy impressive on its own, but it's 15 km away from the area surrounding the Burj Khalifa, which is somewhat thinner as far as density goes (comparatively). Depends on the angle you're looking from. If they could have put everything in the same area, only cities like Toronto, NYC, and Chicago would compare.
Anyway, just some rambling from the Middle East. No matter what they build out here, nothing can compare to a Calgary sunrise or sunset with the red sun rays glancing off the glass towers downtown and the mountains looming in the back.