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The mayor's deal has smothered London's public spaces with what may be the largest piece of corporate branding in existence

London's long-awaited cycle-hire scheme is launched this week. While there's no doubt it's a valuable addition to the capital's public transport options, it strikes yet another blow to the idea of London as a dignified city. First of all, there's the name. Paris has the Velib, Montreal has the Bixi; what does London get? Barclays Cycle Hire. Clearly the good people at Barclays marketing thought long and hard about that one.

Maybe it's not worth getting too wound up about the name – selling the rights to popular institutions is unlikely to make anyone who watches, say, the Barclays Premier League or the Npower Championship even blink. What is new, however, is the prospect of more than a hundred kilometres of the capital's road surface being branded with corporate livery. The city's new dedicated cycle lanes – two of which recently opened, with another ten to come before the Olympics – are called "Barclays Cycle Superhighways" and painted Barclays blue.

London can now claim the dubious honour of hosting what is surely the largest piece of corporate branding in existence. It's not just the scale, the mind-blowing square footage, that is shocking about this – it's the principle. We're not talking about some supersized billboard here: we're talking about the mayor selling off the very road beneath our wheels – one of the few parts of a city that counts indisputably as public space. Whether they realise it or not, whether or not they even care, from now on thousands of cyclists are doomed to commute on a giant Barclays ad.

The sponsorship deal, worth £25m, has been presented as a coup for Boris Johnson. It has enabled him to recover some of the £140m Transport for London spent on the cycle-hire scheme and has even been presented as "payback" for the mayor's support of the banks during the credit crunch. Surely, however, £25m is a small price to pay for such an invasive piece of branding? If a city of the global stature of London can't afford to provide rental bikes without turning its urban fabric into a massive endorsement, we're in trouble.

There is something, too, in the gibes suggesting this is not just Barclays blue but Tory blue. Neither New Labour nor former mayor Ken Livingstone did anything to prevent the growing privatisation of the city, but it is hard to imagine Livingstone selling off a chunk of the public realm in such brazen fashion. Johnson seemingly lacks any sensitivity to the ethical or aesthetic side-effects of his deal-making – this is, after all, the man who condemned the Stratford Olympics site to a hideous 115m-high sculpture – precisely the kind of vainglorious ego trip the Olympics can do without – based on a 45-second chat with Britain's richest man in the cloakroom at Davos. We must be careful not to assume a loss of innocence; private ownership and interests have held sway in this city for centuries, and often cooperation between private and public bodies is the best way to meet the city's needs. However, the public realm that the Victorians handed over to municipal authorities to manage in the public good – including streets and pavements, squares, and infrastructure such as transport and sewage networks – has been under steady assault since the privatisation of the Thatcher years.

A decade ago, Naomi Klein argued in her book No Logo that we had reached a point where it seemed nothing could happen anymore without a corporate sponsor. The inevitable upshot of their growing social power was that brands wanted an expanded visual presence. T-shirt logos and media advertisements were no longer enough: branding had to be a fully immersive experience. As the superhighways prove, there is no amount of space a brand will not happily fill, with public bodies all too willing to hand it over. TfL is becoming ever more imaginative about the bits of Tube stations it will sell off to advertisers – including, now, the space between escalators and the gates of the exit barriers. Every year the Regent Street Christmas lights, once a public gesture organised by the Regent Street Association, turn a major thoroughfare into a 3D advert for some fashion label or blockbuster movie.

Increasingly entire pieces of London have become brands in their own right, a process that began in the 1980s with the privately owned Canary Wharf development. Since then, so-called "business improvement districts" have been popping up all over the capital under the banner of regeneration: Broadgate in the City, Paddington Basin, Kings Cross Central, the new Spitalfields Market, the More London development near Tower Bridge. It's a national phenomenon, too, exemplified by "malls without walls" such as Liverpool ONE or Brindleyplace in Birmingham. They might look like other parts of the city, but they are very different. Stroll through Broadgate and you'll notice the logo of developer British Land studding the pavements. These are privately owned developments, policed by private security guards who can throw you out for the slightest misdemeanour or – if you happen to be sleeping rough, say – simply for disrupting the projection of affluence. In the case of More London – a series of sterile glass blocks set amid some rather uptight landscaping on the South Bank – the very name is a deliberate deception. The developers are trying to claim this is just an ordinary piece of the city. Don't believe it.

Anyone who wants to find out more about the insidious privatisation of British cities should read Anna Minton's latest book, Ground Control. The point is that we are in danger or running out of unbranded space. Though it may seem innocuous, the branding of cycle lanes sets an all-too-exploitable precedent. As citizens we have a communal birthright, which includes the public realm. Our representatives are supposed to protect that – not sell it off to corporations who are neither responsible nor accountable for the spaces of which they claim symbolic ownership. Politicians seem only too ready to turn our cities into horizontal billboards. If we're not vigilant, the urban landscape is going to become a brandscape.

If only Charles had gone into politics. He'd have been a natural wet, and perfect lobby fodder

Suppose that, three decades and more ago, Prince Charles had actually wanted to do what his demons told him. Suppose, up front, renouncing all private letters and salon whispers, he'd become a proper, elected politician: say, the Hon Member for Highgrove or Cornwall West. What would have happened then?

No great ideological problems, perhaps. Charles at the end of the 70s was a natural knight of the shire, which meant – at the dawn of the Thatcher era – being a "wet". He'd have sipped Earl Grey in the tearoom with Jim Prior and Francis Pym, waving to Willie Whitelaw across buttered scones. He'd have given little-reported speeches about social fractures in Britain. He'd have been on Newsnight after the Brixton riots, calling for more cash, more healing, more love and understanding. Archbishop Runcie would have hugged him close. But, look: see the scowl on the Lady's face.

Out, out, damned wets! Charlie MP could probably have slunk through the Falklands. After all, it was our empire, our navy and his brother up there in a chopper. But they play damned good polo in Argentina. He was bound to feel unease. And once Mrs T was in her pomp, rejoicing, roasting old Runcieballs for guilt-dipped sermons, then Charlie would have been doomed to the backbenches. No dreams of becoming a minister of state at agriculture or parliamentary secretary for privileged education. He was to sit at the back, the most docile of lobby fodder, frowning while miners struck (that fractured society bit again), pursing his lips through the Lawson boom (though naturally pocketing its fruits), celebrating in his muted way when some Hezza fellow laid the bloody woman low.

A career reborn? Alas, public and private lives didn't mingle. That simpering blonde wife and two adorable boys he'd featured in his election pamphlets. That passionate old flame with the compliant hubbie who, unlike the flame, always went out. Those horrible stories in the News of the World.

It was so, so distressing, the end of everything surely: and yet, once David Mellor sucked toes and Edwina Currie started bathing with John Major, the circus of shame moved on and he was left, still standing, free to make speeches about saving the landscape for landowners, eating organic pies and pâtés from a neat little food company he'd worked on between wives, and attacking nasty, if renowned, architects building nasty, if renowned, buildings. Somehow the dear wet days of on-one-hand-and-on-the-other were dead and gone for Charlie MP. Now he knew what he didn't like.

But was anybody listening? Not as Ken Livingstone's skyscrapers marched across London. Not as ever younger prime ministers took over in Downing Street. Maybe a word in the right ear would be better than sounding off? Maybe a few letters in green ink could give him the influence he craved? Perhaps coffee with passing emirs – as chairman of the Parliamentary Qatar Friendship Society – might stop that obscene mess near Chelsea Bridge?

Behind the scenes was better than front of house, he thought. Lying low could bring many things he loathed low, too. But then, one bleak morning, he opened the Telegraph and saw his own face frowning out at him. Charlie Windsor in Moated Duck House Cash Claim Horror, the headline howled. Supposed Charities Pushed MP's Personal Passions! Tory Knight's Fingers in Porky Pie!

And so, of course, his career was over. He was back at Highgrove. Maybe if I'd been a prince or something, people would have heard what I had to say, he thought. But politics? Getting elected? Just too much jolly sweat and disappointment. Where on earth could he go now to give speeches nobody wanted to people who didn't listen? Ah yes! Thank God for the House of Lords.

Sri Carmichael and Mira Bar-Hillel:

The clash between the Labour government, which opposes high rise, and the Mayor, who has become a convert to new building projects, has ended in a planning stalemate as the recession bites. At least 21 London property schemes could be scrapped or dramatically shrunk.

There follows a telling round-up of the capital's stunted tower projects, each a tale of crunched credit or obstruction of Boris by Blears. What interests me - because I can't yet detect one - is the guiding principle behind the Mayor's policy on towers. He's said yes to them more often than his critics would like, yet he's just said no to Rafael Vinoly's intended 300 metre-tall glass chimney on the site of Battersea power station. Building Design and Construction reports:

After opposition from local residents and Johnson, REO, which is 67% owned by the Treasury, has decided to replace the dome with individual canopies covering the buildings and abandon plans for the tower, which would have been one of the tallest structures in London.

The Mayor's office emphasises that Boris isn't against tall buildings where they are "appropriate". But what does "appropriate" mean?

Amanda Baillieu:

Just as green belt land is often ordinary farmland with no special claim to preservation, we need to ask why we are protecting particular views that — with some notable exceptions — are no more special than others. Of course no one can not enjoy seeing St Paul's from the top of Primrose Hill or Richmond Park, but why is this more special than the view from the terrace of the National Theatre?

Now read on.

At Building, Michael Willoughby:

Mayor Boris Johnson attacked his workplace, the 2002 Greater London Authority (GLA) building, as one of the worst in London shortly before handing its developer a planning award.

Love it. Now read on.

Simon Jenkins in the Standard:

Boris Johnson swore that he would rescind Livingstone's towers. He told all comers that he would "stop the madness". Yet no sooner was he in "the testicle" than he craved a phallus. The developer lobbyists got to him and undermined his self-confidence.

The Mayor, of course, doesn't see it quite that way. Whatever, Jenkins might reflect that several boroughs have lobbied for towers too and that he, like Boris, spoke during the election campaign in favour of boroughs being free from bossy mayors. You can't have it both ways.

An Evening Standard leader:

Boris Johnson's policy of restricting approval for tall buildings in London to limited areas was once a fundamental element of his approach to planning. But his approval for tall buildings in Wandsworth and Ealing, areas without existing clusters of blocks, suggests an approach more like the ad-hoc policy of his predecessor, Ken Livingstone, who took a notoriously lax attitude to skyscrapers. Now Mr Johnson has a chance to show whether his planning policy for our skyline has rigour or consistency.

A new proposal for The Spires, three enormous tower blocks right by City Hall, is being submitted for approval. It would be hard to justify. The tallest of the three would reportedly offer views of the English Channel; together they would interfere with the Mayor's own views. In a downturn, there is little economic rationale for projects like this; aesthetically, there is even less. Mr Johnson should say no.

Wow, Veronica really has left the building hasn't she? No wonder Boris is putting on a Russian festival, of which he says:

Russian Londoners are a thriving community who have made a significant contribution to the capital both economically and culturally. I encourage everyone to come and enjoy this fantastic festival offering.

Are you listening, Alexander?

More on The Spires and other Irvine Sellar proposals for central London here.

A better Olympic legacy for east London would be a return to its great manufacturing tradition

At York station yesterday, the Prince of Wales unveiled the nameplate of Tornado, the first mainline railway locomotive to be built in Britain for many years. Tornado just happens to be a steam engine, a slightly modernised recreation of a London and North Eastern Railway express passenger "Pacific" of 60 years ago.

Created over 18 years and at a cost of £3m by the A1 Locomotive Trust in Darlington, Tornado has captured the hearts of railway enthusiasts worldwide. Network Rail was astonished by the sheer scale and enthusiasm of the camera-toting crowds who turned up - all ages, classes, colours, genders and creeds - to witness the muscular apple green locomotive's first arrival at King's Cross. News of Tornado's exploits has been reported around the world, including China, where most heavy industry seems to be rooted today.

When Prince Charles officially named Tornado, it was against the backdrop of the sweeping curve of York's 1870s train shed, an adventure in cast-iron Victorian gothic designed by Thomas Prosser and William Peachey, and a properly Olympian setting for an Olympian locomotive. Within sight of those on the platform was York Minster, a commanding example of English craft, architecture and resolve. Overhead, a flight of RAF Tornado jets roared past. For a few precious minutes, York harboured a stirring gathering of British design and engineering excellence, a legacy to savour.

Turn now to the scene enacted a fortnight ago at Stratford, east London, where the mayor of London, the secretary of state for communities and the Olympics minister unveiled "legacy plans" for the 2012 Olympics. Now that prized private funding has vanished, the legacy will be paid for by the public purse. It had better be good. As good as York Minster, York station, a fly past of the RAF's finest and Tornado, the green engine stealing hearts away.

There will be lots and lots of homes, zero-carbon, of course, based on German and Swedish, rather than English, precedent and connected by footpaths and cycleways around a determinedly uninspired park. There will be a National Skills Academy for sports and leisure industries, rock concerts, an "Olympic university" and other things. What things? Well, you know, small, environmentally friendly things. Anyway, it will all be "world class", or about as enticing as a bowl of cold porridge.

I wonder if it has occurred to these London Olympians, so different in stature and ambition from York's, that the seeds of a truly worthwhile legacy are in the very soil of Stratford and along the banks of the river Lea that flows lugubriously through it. The site chosen for the 2012 Austerity Olympics was, until 1991, home to the Stratford railway works, founded in 1847. It held the record for high-speed manufacturing; in 1891, one of James Holden's 0-6-0 freight locomotives was built here in nine hours and 47 minutes. It went straight into service and ran more than 1.2 million miles over the following 44 years.

Stratford and the Lea Valley were, in fact, the cradle of a second industrial revolution, with Britain at its forefront. Up the river Lea, companies like Avro and Hawker Siddeley got Britain into the air. Here, in 1904, Ambrose Fleming invented the diode valve, a key to the development of radio, television, computers and the internet. The first radio valves were made here, and the first television tubes emerged 20 years later. Aero-engines and custom-designed London buses were made in Walthamstow. Lee-Enfield rifles were made here, too.

If we were serious about creating a legacy from the Olympics, we would do everything we could to establish the latest forms of manufacturing here. We might, of course, even choose to build the next generation of high-speed trains here. Such industry would mean young people learning valuable and enjoyable skills, a future workforce with responsible and uplifting jobs, and a solid economic base on which to build a post-financial services dependent economy.

Sadly, British politicians tend to have little care for manufacturing, railways and British jobs. Yesterday the Prince of Wales evoked the spirit of a manufacturing and design legacy we could have - in ultra-modern form - but which we will reject as a matter of course in favour of unimaginative, posturing "urban regeneration", which will see the East End of London little better off than before - collectively stacking the shelves of Hadean supermarkets rather than building the modern equivalent of the Olympian Tornado.

• Jonathan Glancey is the Guardian's architecture critic jonathan.glancey@guardian.co.uk

Sir Simon Milton, interviewed in Building:

Boris' legacy will be the creation of a distinctive architecture for London. A kind of architectural vernacular, especially for housing, that is definitely London.

For Milton on the "affordable" target, the mayor's use of strategic powers and charging developers for Crossrail, read on.

Well, what do you know? Regen Daily reports:

Boris Johnson has agreed to back Rafael Vinoly's design for a 38-storey tower, subject to a series of minor revisions. Dubbed the Walkie Talkie, the Land Securities development is planned for 20 Fenchurch Street in the City of London.

With some of Boris's other green lights to tall buildings, you can see how he might deny breaking his pledge to restrict their proliferation (I'd link to the relevant bit of his manifesto, but still no-one has revived his campaign site. Come on, Alex or whoever in Team Boris is suppose to be on the case. This is a democracy, you know).

Most have been out of the centre of town, and blocking the Doon Street tower would have meant a lot of grief. But the Walkie-Talkie was mocked by the very traditionalists whose tastes he aligned himself with. I don't get this one at all. Will seek clarification.

Update, 12.46: I didn't need to seek clarification. It arrived all by itself, in the form of a phone call from one of the mayor's press officers. The thing is, he explained, Boris was in no position to stop the Walkie-Talkie being built because the basic plan had already been given the go-ahead under Ken Livingstone. All Boris has given his blessing to are some small changes that the developers wanted to make and, in any case, the building would not have been at odds with his definition of an appropriate location for a new tall building.

So there we have it. I am grateful and I have a great deal to learn. That said, if Boris still wants to be seen as a maoyr who stops tall buildings appearing all over the place, he must be wishing a few more people would come up with ideas for them that a) he doesn't approve of, and b) he's in a position to say no to. Just a thought.

Update, 16.24: And there's another angle.