Such is the demand that in some areas homes are taking over from offices up in the air. Even Birmingham's famous 1960s Rotunda office tower, right next to the rebuilt Bull Ring shopping centre with its new space-fungus Selfridges, is being converted to flats by young architect Glenn Howells. It's typical, when you think about it: while the South agonises about living high, the North just gets on and does it. The Beetham tower in Manchester will be 98 feet taller than Britain's previous highest residential towers, the sought-after Barbican in London. So the south is playing catch-up, but it's upping the stakes: Brighton and Hove has plans for a cluster of four extraordinary sculpted apartment towers by American iconoclast Frank Gehry, to be built right on the waterfront. Meanwhile, increasing numbers of once-despised council tower blocks are getting spruced up as everyone realizes that most of the problems with them were to do with management, not design. The elegant blade of the early 1970s Trellick tower in west London, by the wonderfully-named architect Erno Goldfinger, is now one of London's most admired buildings, is officially listed as architecturally important, and is about to undergo a multi-million pound refit.

Some of the earlier, better office towers are now pretty well thought of, too. Centre Point at the eastern end of London's Oxford Street, by architect Richard Seifert, was the focus of early anti-capitalist protests in the 1970s as it stood empty for years, a colossal tax dodge on the part of its developer. But today, it is not only fully occupied but fully integrated into the life of the capital. Its distinctive profile - a clever honeycomb concrete structure - is also listed. Not too many years ago, this would have been inconceivable.