Developer Donald Trump has scrapped plans to build the world's tallest building in the wake of the 11 September attacks in the US.

The 78-story Trump Tower Chicago will instead be the fourth largest skyscraper in the city.

The events of 11 September "telescoped a decision that probably would have been made anyway", Charles Reiss, senior vice president of development for the Trump Organisation said. "There is just so much inefficiency in extremely tall buildings."

The developers still have to get financing for the building - a factor which may prove difficult in the light of the current slowdown in the US.

The original plan would have made it the world's tallest housing complex and been 17 feet taller than Petronas Towers in Malaysia - currently number one in the global skyscraper stakes.

No more tall buildings?

The decision is as much to do with the economics of such projects - due to begin in 2003 - as the attacks in the US, a spokesman for newspaper group Hollinger, one of the developers involved in the project, said.

"Since September 11, I think it is the right decision not to create a building that is in itself a target," Hollinger's Mark Kipner told the BBC's World Business Report.

"A building that tall is a very costly inefficient building and in today's marketplace we are... to do a very good, yet economical building that should attract an ongoing quality tenant," he said.

"If there is sufficient demand for the building, it will be built... Ultimately the market place, not any individual developer, is going to decide how tall a building will be."

But he doubts that the terror attacks in the US will stop the race to build the world's tallest building.

"There will be the right time, the right entrepreneur who will do that, especially if September 11 turns out to be an isolated incident... if there is a continual series of attacks on tall buildings, then yes, you might have a serious impediment to building future buildings," he said.

Up until 1996, Chicago had been home to the tallest building in the world - the Sears' Tower.