The NYC skyscraper currently collapsing on its own should finish off the entire skyscraper cult. 9/11 should have finished it off. The curtain-wall skyscraper is inherently unstable, even without earthquakes or collisions or changes by construction.
Going up instead of out made sense before 1930. Complex commerce required physical nearness to transfer documents and conversations securely.
Vertical stopped making sense in 1930. Sophisticated telephone and telegraph networks, including fax machines and remote pens, enabled secure verbal and visual communication over a broad suburban area.
The classic skyscrapers of the 30s were built like cathedrals, heaviest at the bottom, with buttresses at all levels. Planes crashed into the Empire State and didn’t knock it down. Even though they were solid, they were already unneeded.
After 1940 the Brutalist movement gave us fragile unstable Jenga towers. In the current era when the entire economy is a dick-measuring contest between three demons, the unstable dicks are absurdly long and narrow.
Polistra's Mill 