The two towers

In the foreground, the Tower of London, built by a predatory, disconnected elite in order to overawe a subject population with a huge, costly symbol of power and dominance. In the background, the Shard.

The conceptual barrier to places in our cities is brought about by a process of engineered exclusion. While horizontal sprawl and change is visible, visitable and affects us (examples include sitting in increased traffic or putting up with construction due to transportation line extensions), we often feel out of touch with vertical sprawl because those spaces (especially tall buildings) are built for the elite, the 1%, the bankers, bosses and businessmen (yes I said men). In the case of the Shard, apartments on floors 53 to 65 will cost 3 to 5 million pounds each. While concessions are sometimes made, such as the inclusion of public viewing platforms on the Shard, they will presumably, like the Eye, be for those who are able to pay exorbitant entrance fees. Those platforms will also have a separate entrance to ensure visitors don't access the rest of the building. It's clear that these vertical spaces, though inescapably part of the urban constitution, are not built for us.