i play the digital deluxe version of this game, maybe thats the reason. and dont worry about bigger buildings, there enough attractions that steal a lot of space. in this city i only build attractions for the $ and $$ society. cause it was the first city in region and no support from other cities. and btw, the tokio tower is high, its looks smaller cause all other are high/big 2 ;-) in the backround it's the "willis tower" (527,3 m building top) that is even higher as empire state building (443,2 m top) and the tokio tower (332,6 m top) is still 1/2 of this.the scale maybe not perfect compared to RL, buts it's still one of the higher (not bigger ;-)) buildings... who cares, its a game.
i think to get higher population (500.000+) , you have to go for water/energy ressources and build industrial/education/etc (stuff like that) from other cities to "feed the meat machine". autonomous supply maybe with hightech/$$$ population, but don't really know cause i play since 3 days and still $%&^! ;-)