One of the most off-putting things about living in Manhattan is the fact that you can't see where you are. If you live in the center of the city, it's possible to go several weeks without ever seeing the horizon. For some people that I know, that's part of the appeal of the city -- being overwhelmed and disoriented by the mass of people and concrete. For me, not so much.

I've never felt as anxious as I did when I lived in Manhattan. When I first moved here, I would wake up with pounding migraines that would pulse in the front of my brain for most of the day. Often, this kind of migraine would pop up the morning after I'd had one or two beers, and I'd figured that I was simply in the process of outgrowing my tolerance for alcohol. Then I visited the dentist, and it turned out that I'd started grinding my teeth. My dentists attributed this to a variety of stresses, but, honestly, I think it had as much to do with the claustrophobia of living in a city where I couldn't see where the hell I was.

Why do I bring this up? Partly because New York's skyline, despite the mortgage crisis, continues to rise uncomfortably upward. Midtown is perpetually dotted with construction cranes (some of which have an unfortunate tendency to collapse), and taller buildings are constantly rising above already tall ones. Jean Nouvel recently won a prize for his design for a 75 story tower next to the Museum of Modern Art, and developper Larry Silverstein announced that he would be building New York's tallest residential tower in the shadow of the Freedom Tower.

But some cities have made a conscious effort to stave off this kind of upward mobility, like Paris -- and, here's the other reason I bring this up, that may now be a thing of the past. As the Times Online pointed out in a recent article about London's skyline, "Parisians were so traumatised by the arrival of the ghastly 689ft Tour Montparnasse at the start of the 1970s — stuck out awkwardly to one side of the centre — that they forthwith corralled all new towers in the western La Défense business district…"

From yesterday's AP:

"The Paris city council voted Tuesday to consider erecting tall buildings on the rim of this historically low-rise capital.

The decision means that six new sites, under consideration for completion between 2012 and 2014, could host buildings reaching as high as 656 feet, or a little under two-thirds the height of the Eiffel Tower.

Though the move, for now, only allows for high-rise buildings on Paris' perimeter, many see it as the beginning of a broader shift, and it has prompted fiery debate about how to adapt the Paris skyline to the 21st century."

So how does one adapt a skyline to the 21st century? I hope it would be done by balancing the needs of long-term citizens with those of developpers, and ensuring that a building's aesthetics fit those of the existing neighborhood, and that the macho one-upmanship that seems to come with building upwards doesn't trump other concerns. The Parisians' plan, with a small number of tall buildings scattered around the city doesn't really seem to fit that mold.

I've lived in cities, like Toronto, where livable neighborhoods -- with a healthy mix of residential and commercial spaces -- were destroyed by the construction of tall and inappropriate buildings. This is partly because of gentrification, the growth of the condo market, limited space, and the seemingly inevitable move to make buildings taller, and thereby create a distinctive city skyline.

We seem to be in the middle of a new worldwide move upwards. London's skyline, among many others, has received an upgrade over the past few years, and across the Middle East and China, builders are competing to construct a new generation of ultra-tall buildings. The Burj Dubai in the United Arab Emirates recently overtook the CN Tower as the world's largest free-standing structure. Toronto seems to be following suit, with a raft of new tall developments planned.

Now that I live in Brooklyn, similar projects are being discussed here. The Atlantic Yards project, a tall monstrosity by Frank Gehry, may potentially be built just a few feet from where I live -- in an effort to "modernize" Brooklyn. It's raised a great deal of animosity from the local community, and has reminded me that living in a large city sometimes you've got to come to terms with things you don't like. (If not, what am I doing living in a large city?) But I wonder: Is this the inevitable future? Is the low-rise, low-density city a thing of the past? As I walked down my Brooklyn street this morning, and let my eyes wander across the sky, I hoped not.