"Glistening towers can beguile but won't provide the homes London most needs"

"The proliferation of tall buildings in the capital demonstrates at best a weak approach to the issue of housing density"

Link to The Guardian

"... Too much of the public noise about London's teeming towers comes from conservationists and aesthetes. Diverting though their quarrels about scale, symbolism and taste are, they barely touch upon the issue that the sprouting of tall buildings most strongly illuminates, which is the relationship between the supply of new places to live and London's policies on housing density.

"There is a large consensus that the capital will need to cram more homes into (or onto) the available space if it's to get anywhere near matching the daunting estimates of what will be required to house its exploding population over the next 15 years and more - around 50,000 per annum just to keep up, and more like 80,000 if recent backlogs are to be cleared.

"Tower blocks appear to be a logical part of the answer - more height means more dwellings on the same piece of earth. But if greater density is indeed needed, how much of it should be sought, where should it be located, who will it be for, what form should it take and how can the best solutions be arranged?

"Last Tuesday, the London Assembly planning committee explored the density debate with a panel of guests, including one who has co-authored a report on the issue for the Greater London Authority and one who works in its planning directorate."