LONDON — London is on the rise.

Almost 250 buildings of 20 or more stories are being built or planned for the city and its suburbs in the next few years. About 150 of those structures are to be residential, including the Newfoundland tower in Canary Wharf that, at 58 stories, would become the second-tallest building in the city after the 72-story Shard.

The high-rises are hailed by some as the only solution to the city’s chronic housing shortage, and as the result of overseas investment that has flowed into the capital since the global downturn of 2008, most of it attached to high-rise projects.

But others argue that the buildings will clog London’s skyline. And they say that its post-World War II practice of grouping towers on streetless sites, in a kind of residential version of an industrial park, produces a sterile environment and less housing than traditional terraced homes, a local term for townhouses.

The long-running debate about the issue has intensified since the New London Architecture organization publicized the number of tower blocks earlier this year. And opposition has been encouraged by the Architects’ Journal and luminaries including the sculptor Antony Gormley, the author Alan Bennett, the Stirling Prize-winning architect Alison Brooks and two London mayoral hopefuls, Tessa Jowell and David Lammy, both Labour members of Parliament.