In america they call it "trophy or trauma". On one hand, investors from all over the world are pouring money into glittering skyscrapers and historic buildings. On the other, property in regional cities that were savaged by the recession in 2008 and 2009 has not yet recovered.  The same polarising effect could be said to be gripping the British property market. When the decade-long bull run came to a screeching halt in mid 2007, the value of commercial property plunged by half in the worst-hit parts of the country. Banks such as HBOS and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), which had between them almost sustained the industry, turned off the lending taps. Deals struck in the era of easy debt collapsed and a generation of tycoons went from billionaires to bankrupts.  London's three largest listed property companies - Land Securities, British Land and Hammerson - each went cap in hand to their shareholders for hundreds of millions of pounds in rights issues, as did several smaller players. Minnows disappeared: Brixton, the industrial specialist, was swallowed by its larger rival Segro, and cash-strapped operators such as Minerva were put into play.  Walk through London's Soho or Canary Wharf today and it is hard to imagine a crash ever happened. From the low point in the spring of 2009, values have bounced back vigorously. Property in the West End has recovered by 51% while in the City it is up by 62%. Mayfair rents are on track to pass ?100 per square foot this year, according to Jones Lang LaSalle, the consultant.  In the City, rates could pass ?60 per square foot and head toward the pre-crisis level of ?66.  Bill Page, head of offices research at Jones Lang LaSalle, said: "London corrected very heavily on the downside during the credit crunch. The strong recovery since then has been fuelled by yield compression and a lack of quality supply, which has driven up rents."  a raft of development projects put on ice during the credit crunch has been brought to life. Last October, Land Securities teamed up with Canary Wharf to restart work on 20 Fenchurch Street - otherwise known as the Walkie Talkie. a bulbous 36-storey structure designed by the Uruguay-born architect Rafael Vi?oly, the tower has an hourglass shape that will mean its upper floors are larger than those in the middle.  In direct competition is British Land and Oxford Properties' 47-storey skyscraper at 122 Leadenhall Street known as the Cheesegrater. Great Portland Estates and Brookfield, the Canadian investor, are waiting to secure a tenant before starting work on their 40-storey tower at 100 Bishopsgate.  Other projects were never suspended. The veteran developer Gerald Ronson is about to complete his Heron Tower, a 46-storey structure near Liverpool Street whose foyer will feature a 700,000-litre aquarium with sharks. a Middle Eastern consortium, arab Investments, is pressing on with a 63-floor tower on Bishopsgate called the Pinnacle, or the Helter Skelter. Irvine Sellar's Shard, a 72-storey monster taking shape behind London Bridge station, increasingly wows passers-by as huge slabs of glass are added to its sides.  Peter Rees, planner-in-chief for the City of London, believes the changing skyline is "a good way to demonstrate the capital's economic success". "You don't improve a place by building tall - you need to have a successful place in the first instance," he said. "Those Norfolk church spires were built from wool, not piety."  The picture outside the capital is more challenging. Every regional city apart from Manchester suffered falling office rents last year, according to Drivers Jonas Deloitte, the consultant. In northern towns such as Doncaster and Stockport one in five shops stands empty.  although areas outside London will be worse affected by the government's austerity measures, there is hope. The difference in returns is striking - average London yields stand at 5.8%, compared with 7.6% in the regions - sending a growing band of investors further afield in search of more bang for their buck.  "You can never say, 'we won't touch certain areas because of the spending cuts', because you will miss opportunities," said Robert Gilchrist of Rockspring, the asset manager. "Underneath the gloomy headlines many parts of the country are still prospering."  Property giants such as Land Securities and British Land have recently bought shopping centres in locations such as Dundee and Devon. Nimbler players such as Helical Bar, Town Centre Securities and St Modwen have squeezed profits from outof-favour stock.  St Modwen's secondary properties - which include malls in London's Elephant & Castle and Edmonton and Manchester's Wythenshawe - were the engine behind the group's ?37.5m pre-tax gain last year. Bill Oliver, chief executive, said: "We have been pushing back against the view from City analysts that prime property is good and everything in the provinces is no good. There is life outside London. With the right management and the right location it can perform quite well."  Meanwhile, looming like a mountain behind Britain's property market is the ?163 billion of debt that needs to be renewed in the next three years. Lloyds Banking Group, RBS and Ireland's "bad bank", the National asset Management agency (Nama), need to resolve large bundles of loans made at the top of the market, whether by refinancing them, massaging borrowers back to health or selling them on in some form.  Lloyds disposed of ?4 billion last year and is expected to shift a similar