Of all of the first lines in all 20^th-century literature, the opening sentence of British author JG Ballard’s 1975 novel High-Rise takes some beating for drama, tension and an image likely to put pet-lovers’ teeth on edge:

“Later, as he sat on his balcony eating the dog, Dr Robert Laing reflected on the unusual events that had taken place within this huge apartment building during the previous three months.” 

Who wouldn’t keep reading? For the unfamiliar, High-Rise is a grizzly but brilliantly built tale of the moral and psychological descent of a group of middle-class professionals into the worst imaginable versions of themselves. The cause of their fall? Cohabitation in a vertiginous apartment block of the sort that was flying up across London at the time. Fifty years on, the issues at the story’s heart – community, placemaking, urbanism and what it means to live well – are as relevant as ever.

Nudged by subtle differences and barely perceptible social gradations (gleaned by floor, profession or proximity to services), the residents of Ballard’s nameless high-rise slowly swap community for chaos and civility for savagery in a way that clearly reflects the novelist’s suspicion that such architecture plays a macabre part. Though the principles of the high-rise were born through improved engineering and construction techniques, and couched in optimistic modernism (Swiss architect Le Corbusier called them “streets in the sky” and demanded dignity for all), it didn’t take long for the cheer to curdle. 

Spurred by housing demands after the Second World War – and aided by craters left by Luftwaffe bombs – a new genre of hastily thrown-up residential buildings began to attract suspicion. Were these good places to house the many, or rangy receptacles for the sad and lonely masses? It’s no coincidence that James Bond creator and author Ian Fleming named his villain Goldfinger after the British-Hungarian architect responsible for several famous London high-rises erected in the 1960s and 1970s. Tall towers have always cast a long shadow.

High-Rise itself is a work of fiction but at its core lies the fact that the author, and many others, saw the new carbuncular modernism that defined mid-century building as atomising, oppressive, inhumane and anti-social. What’s more, many long-running issues and concerns with vertical living are becoming more relevant than ever. Cities today – especially London, where the novel is set – are struggling to find housing density to meet demands. 

I mention all this because my circumstances recently changed to offer me a new perspective. Things began, well, looking up when renovations on my modest terraced home drove me – my wife, my young son and our cat Alfie – into the charity of a friend’s vacant, soon-to-be-sold apartment umpteen floors up overlooking east London. It was to be my first taste of an elevated existence.

Like the tentative early chapters of the novel (before things truly begin to unravel), our initial feelings were a breezy fondness for the fresh perspective. The lift, the mod cons, the gym, the big windows, the breeze and the maze of streets far below were intoxicating novelties. As time passed, this most artificial of platforms offered a glimpse of nature as I’d never seen before in the city. The sun rose and fell in a place where I’ve lived for 15 years yet rarely seen it. The city took on a thrilling new light: daylight, liberated from the shade most people experience between buildings, beamed brightly onto church spires, slate roofs, offices and landmarks, and trees budded and blossomed among the edifices. (Light, you realise, is the price the rest of us pay for the shadows cast by these tall towers).

Ballard’s book is a dramatic, twisted and preposterously dark but real version of what I – and more than a few snooty architecture critics – have long thought life at height must look like: a bit sad, insular and isolated. But as weeks passed, my concerns lifted too. Time was measured not by the feeling of being trapped but by a sense of freedom: in lemony-hued sunrises of early spring and dramatic sunsets of deep-red and bruise-purple over a city I saw anew with each change of weather. Over time, the rhythms of the street, commuters, partygoers, buses and taxis – although Lilliputian – seemed all the more poignant and pretty when experienced from above. By the time we came to abandon our experiment with altitude, even some of the initially unfriendly, eye-contact-avoiding lift-dwellers and neighbours warmed up and began exchanging pleasantries. It was a lot more Corbusian cheer than Ballardian bleakness. People, I can confirm, are mercifully much the same in the sky as on the street.

So, could building more high-rises still be a viable solution to London’s housing shortage? Today, more than at any time since Ballard’s book was published, cities are redrawing our relationship with our lofty neighbours. While taller buildings should be appealing (if only for the number of units they can offer in a smaller space) there’s fresh backlash against the housing blocks that have been part of planning orthodoxy for the past half century. In the UK this is partly due to the unnerving prevalence of flammable cladding that was exposed after the Grenfell fire tragedy that cost 72 lives in 2017 and commemorates its eight-year anniversary this weekend. Not to mention the many well-built, well-intentioned blocks that have succumbed to neglect, decay and ghettoisation, and the newer ones being thrown up by corner-cutting developers. To top it off, the UK’s unnecessarily complicated and often unfair system of leaseholds and service charges doesn’t make ownership appealing either. Lastly, there’s the post-pandemic pushback against small flats without green space as a response to shifting expectations of homes in the busy city. Challenges aside, this need not be the death knell for urban density.

Designed well with careful consideration for the proportions, neighbours, services and connection to the street, tall buildings can be beautiful and do not necessarily presage a collapse in community. The water did go off in the block once (for an hour or two) but I’m happy to report that this was the extent of the blight and there was no further descent into a Hobbesian hell. We didn’t once consider barbecuing the cat. 

High-rises can be exciting, elevating and an integral part of the city’s texture and should be big and bold enough for more than one genre of family, home and lifestyle. Of course, there are downsides but perhaps it’s time to drop the snobbery, lower our guard a little and give the high life another chance.

Josh Fehnert is Monocle’s editor. For more on global affairs to business, culture and design, subscribe to Monocle today.