San Francisco leaning tower scandal turns political

San Francisco

FOR years, San Francisco was a famously low-rise city. Then came the tech boom, and the race was on to build the glass and steel edifices that populate the world's great cities. But in earthquake-prone San Francisco there is a catch: Many of the city's new skyscrapers are concentrated in a neighbourhood of squishy land reclaimed from the bay.

One of the new buildings, the 58-storey Millennium Tower, has now sunk by 40cm. Worse, the condominium building is sinking unevenly.