Where did the idea of Skyscrapers originate from?

• ID# 245.2 (reply to #245.1) - 7 October 2003
  An interesting and profound question... If we talk purely about the commercial high-rises that concentrated the personnel and operations of corporations and utilized the limited land plots to the max, then the place must be the old U.S. of A. and the persons enterprising developers and land owners, together with equally enterprising architects, engineers -- and tenants. The prestige game then drove the builders ever higher, prestige of construction of course being a lot older incentive than the 19th Century engineering that gave such structures as the Eiffel Tower or the Wash'ton Monument. ED