Shadows creeping over booming cities

New York

RISING over Midtown is "Billionaires' Row", a collection of glassy new pinnacles that promise the kind of condo views you can get in Manhattan only by building taller than everything else around.

With its US$95 million penthouse, 432 Park Ave tops out just shy of 427 metres. It will remain the tallest residential building in the hemisphere until the Nordstrom Tower - high-end shopping below, luxury living above - goes up four blocks away. Between them are a few more audacious developments, all part of a race for ever-taller towers to distinguish luxury living in an increasingly crowded city.

These new buildings are changing more than the city's famous skyline, though. They will also transform New York far belo…