Newsweek: "More Skyscrapers Come to London, but It May Not Serve the City" [including Hammerson's hapless replacement developer at Brent Cross]

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"Earth has not anything to show more fair."

- William Wordsworth, of the view from Westminster Bridge down the river Thames.

"That was in September 1802. These days, he might change his tune a little. That view, which survived more or less intact for two centuries, has changed out of all recognition over the last couple of decades.

"The biggest injection of money into the capital in its 2,000-year history has sent London soaring into the stratosphere. All along the Thames, from Canary Wharf in the east to Battersea and beyond in the west, skyscrapers have been sprouting from the riverbank. The dome of Sir Christopher Wren’s St Paul’s Cathedral and the spires of his City Churches, which dominated the skyline in Wordsworth’s day, are now 17th-century minnows, dwarfed by the bristling thicket of 21st-century pinnacles.

"And the invasion of the giants shows no signs of stopping. They are migrating across the city, to Greenwich, Islington, Hammersmith, Croydon, Stratford and Brent Cross – high-rises rising higher and higher on the back of a seemingly recession-proof London property market. In the year to January 2014, London property prices jumped by 13.2%."