BBC Radio 4

The ban on building high in Paris is weakening amidst fierce opposition. Meanwhile, in London, Boris Johnson who pledged to stop the 'plague of towers' promised by his predecessor, Ken Livingstone has given the go ahead for a privately funded tower to mark the Olympics. Are skyscrapers really the best way to express pre-eminence and modernity? Does a refusal to build them cramp a city's economic vibrancy? Rosie Millard investigates.