The Scotsman

Anyone with an eye on the development of the modern cityscape, from the reconstruction of regional cities bombed during the Second World War to the smash-it-down, rebuild-it-high ethos of new economies such as China, will have noticed we are soaring into a brave new world of huge skyscrapers and giant office blocks. If Godzilla rose again from the Sea of Japan, 50 storeys high, he'd be dwarfed by many of the glass-and-steel monsters that have risen out of such rapidly modernising cities as Beijing and Kuala Lumpur. Such large-scale modernity, the stamp of brash, aggressive new economies, may seem out of character in the more quaint and historic of the UK's towns and cities, but with a 40-storey tower in pre-planning for Edinburgh's waterfront, and the battle for character and context seemingly already lost in London, the monsters are now in our midst. The skylines of yesterday are becoming the battle zones of the 21st century, and all eyes are resting on that most unspoilt of UK world heritage cities, Edinburgh, currently in the throes of developing and adopting, quite uniquely, a skyline policy.