This may not be a thing… Certainly if you google “the Chicago effect” all you get is an article about how the architecture of the city has been transformed in the last two decades.

It is, however, a phrase I have been using since I visited the city a few years ago. It came up at a recent workshop in Sheffield in which developers and architects were invited to discuss what should be in the planning department’s new Urban Design Compendium including its tall buildings policy.

The Chicago effect describes the situation, as it was explained to me, where perfectly good sites remain undeveloped for years because the owner is holding out for a tower. Why would you sterilise a site by putting up a six-storey apartment or office building when you might wait a few years until a tower becomes viable?

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