London has a jarring profusion of odd skyscrapers with funny names or nicknames. Cheshire and Christian Hilber, also of the London School of Economics, advanced the starchitect argument in an article way back in 2008. Last year, Cheshire included the starchitect idea in an article for a policy journal of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Land-use decisions in Britain are mainly discretionary rather than rules-based, as in, for example, Chicago, Cheshire noted in his article last year. The elected committees that decide on applications in London are unpredictable and can be swayed by lobbying, he wrote.

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Persons: Paul Cheshire, Christian Hilber, Gerard Dericks Organizations: London, Guardian, London School of Economics, Political Science, University of Oxford, U.S . Department of Housing, Urban Locations: London, Cheshire, Britain, Chicago