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Making a city: Urbanity, vitality and urban design

John Montgomerya
a
Managing Director, Urban Cultures Ltd., London, UK

To cite this Article Montgomery, John(1998) 'Making a city: Urbanity, vitality and urban design', Journal of Urban Design,

3: 1, 93 116

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Journal of Urban Design, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1998

93

Making a City: Urbanity, Vitality and Urban Design

JOHN MONTGOMERY
Following decades of both planned and market-driven decentralization of
cities and city-regions, urban policy makers are now extolling the virtues of the compact
city. The model which is held up as a good example is that of the traditional European
city which is relatively dense and fine-grained. The model that is no longer considered
sustainable (economically and socially as well as environmentally) is the sprawl, strip or
edge city, more often than not planned around the automobile. One question is the extent
to which this European model of the good city transfers to the UK context. The author
would argue that a number of engrained attitudes to city planning (and indeed city life)
persist which together might undermine attempts to stimulate more active and culturally
confident cities. Nevertheless, if we are to have more active and better cities, we need to
know how best to manage, develop and design them. This paper argues that the city is
a phenomenon of structured complexity. Good cities tend to be a balance of a reasonably
ordered and legible city form, and places of many and varied comings and goings,
meetings and transactions. What might appear to some as disorder is very often simply
the everyday rhythm of city life. In the absence of such activity, cities can lose their
urbanity and eventually become suburban in character. The large part of this paper
contains an exposition of the principles of good city form, activity, street life and urban
culture. That is to say, urbanity itself. By reference to a number of cities, the intention
is to show that it is perfectly possible to plan for and design the active city.

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ABSTRACT

Introduction
In the spring of 1995 I was approached by a large property development
company and asked a question which, suddenly, crystallized all of the work, the
thinking and writing I had been engaged in over the preceding eight years. "Tell
us," they said, "if we wished to build a city, how would this be different to
planning a new town? What would we need to do to avoid suburbia or the sort
of soulless development which characterizes so many city centre redevelopments?" Having worked on the Temple Bar development framework,
Manchester's Northern Quarter and many others, I felt I already knew the
answer to this. But my first port of call, as ever, was Jane Jacobs's (1961) Death
and Life of Great American Cities. Drawing on this seminal work, the urban design
literature and some of my own experiences, I set about producing a reference
framework for making good cities. This is it.
My underlying assumption was that a good city is designed, develops and is
managed over an extended period of time to become a 'successful urban place'.
John Montgomery, Managing Director, Urban Cultures Ltd., 378 New Cavendish Street, London
W1M 8JR, UK Fax: 0171 289 03000. Email: [email protected]
1357-4809/98/010093-24 1998 Carfax Publishing Ltd

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94 /. Montgomery
My task was to show how this might be done from scratch. This necessitated
taking a step backwards in order to understand the influences on and characteristics of successful urban places. This is important because although there are
many (quite often historical) examples of good places from which we can learn,
there are also unfortunately a large and growing number of new developments
which singularly fail to achieve a sense of place. Why should this be so, and
what can be done about it?
The European Commission Green Paper on the Urban Environment (1990) was
something of a landmark publication, representing a break with orthodox town
planning in favour of a 'holistic' approach to urban planning, development and
management. In addition to strategies for sustainable and economic development, the Green Paper stressed the importance of generating and protecting the
sense of place. It goes on to argue for the diverse, multi-functional city in which
the quality of life is not a luxury but an essential. The significance of this is that
it presages a move away from zoning and land use separation, the old tenets of
town and country planning as practised for most of the twentieth century. In
England particularly, what we have seen is the spread of 'prairie' planning
creating suburban non-places which tend to be neatly laid out, organized around
a hierarchical pattern of roads (as opposed to streets), and interspersed with
often quite unnecessary patches of grass (Relph, 1976). Such areas, of course,
have their adherents and they are often successful in their own terms. The point,
however, is that they can rarely be described as good urban places, because they
have none or very few of the characteristics of urban quality, that is to say
urbanity.
The task of building a sense of place or a 'piece of city' is a much more
complex and sophisticated undertaking than planning a suburban housing estate
or even a new town. For such an undertaking not only requires a happy
combination of circumstance but also knowledge, understanding, skill and
judgement: an understanding of how successful places work (and why so many
new developments fail as places); the skills to design for urbanity; and the
judgement to know when to design and when to leave space for organic growth
and development. The issue revolves around the type of place one is striving for
and how to get there.
How to Recognize a Successful Urban Place
It is a relatively simple task to think of a successful place, to go there and know
that this is a good place. We all have our favourites. But it is much more difficult
to know why a place is successful, and importantly, whether and how this
success can be generated by setting the right conditions. As the former Secretary
of State for the Environment has mused, what is it that "makes some places a
pleasure to be in and others irredeemably dreary?" (Gummer, 1995).
This debate has been ongoing amongst urban designers for at least 30 years
now and is one which we will revisit briefly (see next section). It is an important
debate for it allows us to understand why places are successful rather than
simply observing or appreciating that this is so.
Nevertheless, it is not unreasonable to draw up a checklist of 'urban success
indicators', as Barry Sherman (1988) has done (see Table 1). What Sherman has
provided is a list of qualities or characteristics of successful urban places. He
tells us what to look for but not why it is there. For, in addition to the 'surface

Making a City

95

Table 1. Indicators of successful urban places

(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
(8)
(9)

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(10)
(11)
(12)

Planning will be invisible and the results will look natural, as though they happpened of
their own accord
There will be interesting and stimulating shapes
The 'familiarity' of streets and street life will be celebrated
There will be secret places which once discovered grow on you, making you look deeper
to find more
There will be surprises, to keep citizens awake, provide topics of conversation, prevent
ennui
Experiment will be encouraged, and there will be exciting things to do
There will be areas and opportunities for informal, casual meetings to take place,
including warm and friendly bars and pubs
Food and drink will be a treat, and people will be able to purchase and consume it at
varying prices and degrees of leisure
There will be a variety of comfortable places to sit and waita city worth living in has
to be a city worth sitting in
There will be a good balance between the needs to prevent loneliness and to preserve
anonymity and privacy
Changing seasons will not draw attention away from the sterner pursuits of daily life
but rather will be an integral part of a continually changing city, and celebrated as such
The senses will be heightened: affection/friendliness/hospitality; a sense of belonging;
historical and cultural continuity; a sense of fun/humour; opportunities for gossip;
open-mindedness; vitality; fantasy; flamboyance; colour; beauty/aesthetic stimulus

Source: Adapted from Sherman (1988).

appearance' which such indicators represent, we must understand that good

urban places have a structure and an underlying dynamic of activity. Unless this
is properly understood, it is more likely that rather than a successful urban
place, what will be produced is an artefact, the ersatz city which, "even though
it may appear exotic and picturesque, is superficial and has an effect only on the
first-time visitor" (Benjamin, 1990). This is why it is so important to conceptualize fully what is meant by 'place'.
Place
Over the years, there has been a split of sorts amongst urban designers over
what constitutes urban quality or the sense of place. There are those such as
Cullen (1961) who place greatest emphasis on physicalitydesign styles, ornamentation and featuring, the way buildings open out into spaces, gateways,
vistas, landmarks and the like. This is the rational objective classical view of
urban design.
Others such as Alexander (1979) or Lynch (1960) stress the psychology of
place, bound up in the notion of 'mental maps' which people use as internal
guides to urban places. In doing so, they rely on their senses to tell them
whether a place feels safe, comfortable, vibrant, quiet or threatening. This is the
romantic subjective view of urban design.
If we were to combine these approaches we would see that urban quality must
be considered in much wider terms than the physical attributes of buildings,
spaces and street patterns. To be sure, there are many physical elements which,
if combined properly (with each other and with the psychology of place)
produce urban quality: architectural form, scale, landmarks, vistas, meeting
places, open space, greening and so on. Yet the notion of urban quality is clearly

96 /. Montgomery

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Figure 1. A visual metaphor for the nature of places. Source: Canter (1977).
more importantly bound up in the social, psychological and cultural dimensions
of place.
Few theorists have managed to bridge this divide, and most remain either
predominantly physical determinists or subjective mental mappers. Initially
something of a voice from the wilderness, Jane Jacobs (1961) was the first to
explore urban quality from the premise that activity both produces and mirrors
quality in the built environment. She identifies four essential determinants
which govern or set the conditions for activity: a mixture of primary use,
intensity, permeability of the urban form and a mixture of building types, ages,
sizes and conditions. Jacobs and others such as Gehl (1989) and Cook (1980)
argue that successful urban places are based predominantly on street life, and
the various ways in which activity occurs in and through buildings and spaces.
This appreciation led Peter Buchanan (1988, p. 33) to comment that:
Urban design is essentially about place-making, where places are not
just a specific space, but all the activities and events which made it
possible.
Thus, we can now see that successful urban places must combine quality in three
essential elements: physical space, the sensory experience and activity. Theorists
such as Relph (1976), Canter (1977) and others (and most recently reinterpreted
by Punter (1991)) show the components of a sense of place and the relationship
(in abstract terms) between them.
Canter's metaphor (Figure 1) combines the urban design perspectives of those
concerned with mental maps and 'imageability' with those who consider the
physical attributes of place, and with those who stress the essential importance
of activity or what has also been referred to as 'natural animation' (Montgomery,
1995a) or the 'city transaction base' (Montgomery, 1995b). This has been most
succinctly put by David Engericht (1992) who argues (perhaps over-stressing the
point a little) that cities were 'invented':
... to facilitate exchange of information, friendship, material goods,
culture, knowledge, insight, skills and also the exchange of emotional,
psychological and spiritual support.

Making a City 97
LAND USES
PEDESTRIAN FLOW
BEHAVIOUR
PATTERNS
NOISE & SMELL
VEHICLE FLOW

= LEGIBILITY
CULTURAL ASSOCIATIONS
PERCEIVED FUNCTIONS, ATTRACTIONS
QUALITATIVE ASSESSMENTS

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Figure 2. Components of a sense of place. Source: Punter (1991).

The important point is this: without a transaction base cities and urban places
become progressively more lifeless, dull and inertthat is to say more suburban. Without activity, there can be no urbanity.
It has to be said that whilst useful as conceptual frameworks, such models
have some way to go before they can be of more practical usefulness. Punter's
(1991) work (Figure 2) is more helpful than Canter, as he provides more detail
on both the components of the built form (townscape, landscape, structure,
permeability) and for meaning or imageability (legibility, cultural associations,
perceived functions and qualitative assessments); but even these need to be
unpacked further to be of practical benefit.
Nevertheless, by pursuing the logic set out above, we can make use of the
components of place to derive a set of preconditions and principles for the
creation of successful urban places. It is to this task that we now turn.
Principles of Place Making
Figure 3 is a composite derived model, combining all the elements of good place
that we have discussed so far. We can use this to identify more precisely the
cocktail of elements (or qualities or characteristics) which produce good places.
We can consider these in turn.
Activity
Activity is very much the product of two separate but related concepts: vitality
and diversity. Vitality is what distinguishes successful urban areas from the
others. It refers to the numbers of people in and around the street (pedestrian
flows) across different times of the day and night, the uptake of facilities, the
number of cultural events and celebrations over the year, the presence of an
active street life, and generally the extent to which a place feels alive or lively.
Indeed, successful places appear to have their own pulse or rhythm, a life force

98 /. Montgomery

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DIVERSITY,
VITALITY,
STREET LIFE,
PEOPLE
WATCHING,
CAFE
CULTURE,
EVENTS*
LOCAL
TRADITIONS/
PASTIMES,
OPENING
HOURS, FLOW,
ATTRACTORS,
TRANSACTION
BASE, FINE
GRAIN
ECONOMY

SCALE
INTENSITY
PERMEABILITY
LANDMARKS
SPACE TO
BLDG RATIOS,
STOCK
(ADAPTABILITY
& RANGE)
VERTICAL
GRAIN,
PUBLIC REALM
(SPACE
SYSTEMS)

IMAGE
(cognition, perception
& information)
= SYMBOLISM & MEMORY
IMAGEABILITY & LEGIBILITY
SENSORY EXPERIENCE &
ASSOCIATIONS
KNOWLEDGEABILITY
RECEPTIVITY
PSYCHOLOGICAL ACCESS
COSMOPOLITAN/SOPHISTICATION
FEAR

Figure 3. Policy directions to foster an urban sense of place (or place making).

or elan vital. But this can never be taken for granted, as there are now many
examples of previously lively places which have become dull and inert.
Certainly, it is possible to generate more vitality, at least for particular
slots of time, by programming events and activities to occur in the
streets, buildings and spaceswhat the French term 'animation culturel'.
However, in the long term urban vitality can only be achieved where
there is a complex diversity of primary land uses and (largely economic)
activity.
The simple truth is that combinations of mixtures of activities, not
separate uses, are the key to successful urban places (the most compelling
and readable account of city diversity remains Jacobs's [1961] book).
This mixture requires a wide diversity of ingredients, which in turn is
dependent on there being sufficient levels of demand to sustain wide-ranging
economic activity. City or urban populations, living in relatively close
proximity, are large enough to support this economic activity, including
such things as tea houses and cafes, foreign grocery stores, delicatessens,
cake shops, cinemas and galleries, pubs and clubs. It is possible to find
all of these things large and small, the ordinary and the strange. This means that
the key to sustaining diversity lies in there being, within easy travelling distance,
relatively large numbers of people with different tastes and proclivities. In other
words, a relatively high population density. With rising car ownership and more
fluid travel patterns, it is nowadays more likely than it once was that quite small
places (towns and even suburbs) can attract enough people to support diversity.
But, on balance, the tendency is for larger, more dense settlements to be the ones
which can maintain diversity.
Whilst vitality can be gauged by measuring pedestrian flows and movements,
the uptake of facilities and the existence or otherwise of 'things to do', the term

Making a City

99

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'diversity' ranges across a far wider set of indices (the following list is derived
from Jacobs, 1961 and Comedia, 1991):
the extent of variety in primary land uses, including residential;
the proportions of locally owned or more generally independent businesses,
particularly shops;
patterns in opening hours, including the existence of evening and night-time
activity;
the presence and size of street markets, and types of specialism;
the availability of cinemas, theatres, wine bars, cafe's, pubs, restaurants and
other cultural and meeting places offering service of different kinds at varying
prices and degrees of quality;
the availability of spaces, including gardens, squares and corners to enable
people-watching and other activities such as cultural animation programmes;
patterns of mixed land ownership so that self-improvement and small-scale
investment in property is possible;
the availability of differing unit sizes of property at varying degrees of cost,
so that small businesses can gain a foothold and not be driven out of business
by sudden rises in rent and/or property taxes;
the degree of innovation and confidence in new architecture, so that where
possible there should be a variety of building types, styles and design;
the presence of an active street life and active street frontages.
As a rule, the most lively and interesting urban areas tend to be places of
complex variety, with a large representation of small-scale business activity
which trades not only with 'consumers' but with other businesses. Successful
local economies are characterized by increasing volumes of trade, constant
innovation and the building up of new products and services, networks of
suppliers and purchasers. Often now referred to as 'post-Fordism' or the
'sub-contracting-out mode of production', this was always a feature of city
economies before modern industrialization. The successful city economy will be
as complex and intricate as possible with myriad networks of firms, and,
crucially, a high proportion of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) inter-trading and sub-contracting. They will variously and continuously be involved in a
dynamic of importing, exporting, import substitution, domestic consumption
and adding new work. This is what is meant by 'growing a fine grain city
economy' (Jacobs, 1969).
The key to successful urban places, therefore, is the transaction base, and this
must be as complex as possible. Not all transactions take a monetary form, and
not all are economic. Urban areas and cities must also provide space for social
and cultural transaction, as we shall see. But without a transaction base of
economic activity at many different levels and layers, it will not be possible to
create a good urban place. Providing the space for transactions, across the day
and night, is what cities have always done.
In this sense, the notion of urban vitality is in large part about opening up the
possibilities for transactions to take place in longer and more extended segments
of time, and over time to develop a pattern of increasing complexity. On this, it
is important to help build the evening economy of urban places, for where this
is lacking a place can only be said to work half of the time. The possibilities for
more activity around the clock, with increasingly flexible work patterns and the
new anthropology of consumption, are there to be exploited (Montgomery,
1994).

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100 /. Montgomery
Having achieved all of this economic activity and diversity, it is important that
at least a proportion of it should occur in the streets, squares and spaces in the
city'the public realm' (Bianchini, 1990). For it is the public realm and associated semi-public spaces which provide the terrain for social interaction and a
significant part of a city's transaction base (the market square, the street vendor,
the shop frontage, the sidewalk cafe). It is activities such as these, and the all
important activities of promenading and people watching, which provide the
dynamic quality of successful urban places. For example, it is important to
encourage pubs, cafes and restaurants to use, where appropriate, the pavement
spaces outside their establishments. This simple device encourages activity,
transactions, people-watching, eyes on the street and therefore natural surveillance.
It is important to recognize that successful urban places tend to have a more
active (and certainly recognizable) public realm: a space system for the city in
which meeting, movement and exchange are possible. But we must also recognize that, whilst the public realm is a pre-condition for public social life, it also
provides the opportunity for people to perform private as well as public roles.
This certainly means that public space is multi-functional, and also, by implication, that there are many different types of space and purposes to which it can
be put. This includes, of course, meeting places and spaces which symbolize
shared memories, customs and traditions, which leads us to consider the role of
meaning or image in place making.
Image

Every place has both an identity and an image, but these are not the same.
Whilst 'identity' is an objective thing (what a place is actually like), image is a
combination of this identity with how a place is perceived. To individuals, the
image of a place is therefore their set of feelings and impressions about that
place (Spencer & Dixon, 1983). These feelings come from a filtering of information received and collected about the place. This filtering is partly based on
individuals' values, beliefs and ideas, but also on wider cultural (whether
received or otherwise) values, beliefs and ideas. This means that images of place
are created from amalgamations of cognition (comprehension or understanding)
and perceptions, as well as individual, group and cultural 'personality' constructs or meaning. Thus, the Royal Circus at Bath has an identity (its physical
form and setting) which can be comprehended, an image (how it is perceived,
which depends on the filtering of information received through the senses), and
a meaning which, in this case, represents enlightenment, civilization and 'good
manners' architecture. Other places have altogether different identities, images
and meaning, and quite often hold out different images and meanings to
different peopleSoho is one such example. And, of course, in no small part,
image and meaning derive from the activity one finds there, and the built form.
An individual's knowledge of a city is, according to Lynch (1960, 1981), a
function of the imageability of the urban environment: that is, the extent to which
the components of the environment make a strong impression on the individual.
In turn, imageability is influenced by a city's legibility: the degree to which the
different elements of the city (defined as paths, edges, districts, nodes and
landmarks) are organized into a coherent and recognizable pattern. By gathering
information about these elements, the individual creates both an image of the

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Making a City 101

city, and also a frame of reference. There is now a considerable body of literature
dealing with the process of obtaining the spatial knowledge of these elements.
One point of disagreement is whether it is paths and districts which serve as
early learning frameworks (Appleyard, 1970) or whether primary nodes and
reference points (landmarks) are the main building blocks in constructing an
image of place (Golledge, 1977). It seems likely, however, that paths are more
dominant for new residents (finding your way around on an everyday basis)
while long-term residents produce more complex mental maps containing both
paths and landmarks (environmental cues). Visitors to new places, by contrast,
tend to use landmarks as anchor-points in constructing route knowledge.
It is also clear that most people acquire knowledge of a place by a piecemeal
'bottom-up' process which is itself dependent on direct experience. Bits and
pieces of knowledge are absorbed and then integrated through the individual's
perceptual filters. This results in both an understanding of the city (its form and
legibility) and an image of the city. And, again, these perceptual filters are partly
individual values and ideas, and partly derived from wider cultural processes
and identities.
It is perfectly possible for a proportion of these wider cultural processes,
values and identities to have emerged over time from associations of events and
places. For example, 'this is where Guy Fawkes was captured', 'this pub is where
Thomas Paine wrote "The Rights of Man"', 'this is where I first met your
mother, under the town clock ...'.So places come to represent memory, meaning
and association for individuals, groups and societies. Sometimes it is clear from
the buildings themselves what sort of meaning is being conveyed, for example
Whitehall could only be a seat of government; sometimes it is an event (the
Peterloo massacre, for example, or the George Square riots); and other times not
from buildings or events or even landmarks, statues or place names, but simply
space. This means that in addition to its contribution to a city's transaction base
and its legibility, space (as well as buildings) can take on symbolic meaning. This
explains the strong feeling which is often aroused when a public space is
threatened with development, why civic spaces until recently were always
considered an essential element in a city's identity, and why when asked to
draw a mental map of their city, so many people start with a public square or
garden. It follows, then, that the spaces in the city, their sequences and
proportions and the way they inter-connect are of cultural importance in the life
of cities. The public realm, therefore, should properly be understood as a 'space
system' with varying sizes, proportions, levels and meanings: a 'space syntax',
ranging from formal to informal, from grand civic spaces to outdoor rooms.
One could argue that with some important exceptions (Birmingham deserves
much praise), the British have lost the knack of designing, looking after,
furnishing and managing public space. This has happened for many reasons: the
privatization of the public realm by shopping malls and office blocks; the neglect
of public space because it costs too much to maintain; the driving out of all
activity because of a few tramps who have been allowed to colonize the space;
municipal over-design of street furniture and the resultant clutter; and simply
the failure to understand how spaces work, what they represent and how they
connect with other spaces and buildings. This is important, for unless we
understand space we cannot design good places. And as I have already argued,
this is not a case of equating public space with public social life and/or
democracy, but simply of allowing space for people to perform both public and

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102 /. Montgomery
private roles (including eye contact and meeting potential sexual partners!) in
city life. There are two regrets one feels about Trafalgar Square: one is that it is
cut off from surrounding buildings (especially the National Gallery) and activity;
the other is that when it is used, this is only for political rallies.
Before finishing this section there are three more concepts to which we need
briefly to allude: psychological access, receptivity and knowledgeability. Over
time, successful places come to represent a sense of identity for their users (in
the sense of identifying with a place). And this often results in a sense of
belonging to a place, of feeling involved and taking an interest or perhaps even
an active part in its affairs. This we term psychological access, and places which
achieve this are much more likely to be respected and looked after. This sense
of local ownership, however, must also allow for tolerance of strangers, so that
successful places engender respect for the place and its people, but also for those
who visit. This we term receptivity.
Finally, places which work well usually have all manner of invisible and
informal networks and associations which, in themselves, are indicators of
involvement: flower arranging, jam-making, judo, sports clubs, keep fit, life
drawing and painting. Information on these activities, local events and traditions
are passed on by word of mouth, posters in shop windows, on notice boards and
by leaflets. All of this can be supported and projected to wider audiences by
more formalized marketing drives. The key point, however, is to encourage
associational activity and to generate greater knowledgeability about what goes on
in a place.

Form

In his later work Lynch (1981) wrote of the qualities which urban design should
seek to achieve, and so create a sense of place, while Alexander (1979) writes of
the 'quality without a name', which he defines in terms of the recurring and
interlocking patterns of events (and, no doubt, meaning) in buildings, spaces
and places. Lynch offers five basic dimensions of city performance: vitality,
sense, fit, access and control. For Lynch, a vital city is one which successfully
fulfils the needs of its inhabitants within a safe environmentin other words, a
good city allows maximum scope for activity. A sensible city is organized so that
its residents can perceive and understand the city's form and functionsin other
words, its legibility. An accessible city allows people of all ages and backgrounds to gain the activities, resources, services and information that they need.
And a city with good control is arranged so that citizens have a say in the
management of the spaces in which they work and reside. To varying degrees,
we have covered most of this ground in our preceding discussions of activity
and image. The question, now, is how activity and image interrelate with form
to generate a sense of place. Or to put it more precisely: can city form be so
designed as to stimulate activity, a positive image and therefore a strong sense
of place?
Lynch's fifth criterion 'fit' seeks to demonstrate how this might be achieved.
A city with good fit provides the buildings, spaces and networks required for its
residents to pursue their projects successfully. In a very real sense, this 'fit' will
be governed by the type of place and the range and intensity of activity desired.
That said, we can build up a picture of the fit necessary to achieve a successful

Making a City 103

urban as opposed to suburban place. Such a good urban place would be
characterized by:

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complexity;
myriad patterns of movement (especially pedestrians);
diversity of primary uses;
a fine-grained economy;
an active street life;
variety in opening hours;
the presence of people attractors;
legibility;
imageability;
knowledgeability.
By seeing these as informing principles, it is possible to derive a 'fit' for a good
urban place. But, paradoxically, this fit cannot be too precise, for it must allow
flexibility for the city to grow organically. (If a city does not grow organically it
is merely a planned as opposed to a living thing.) This also means that cities
must never be wholly predictable, too 'safe' or sanitized. Rather than visual
order and certainty, places which work well also allow for a degree of uncertainty, disorder and chaos. Order and disorder, then, rather than being opposites
are part of one equation: a non-linear equation which might well be manageable
(as appropriate and provided the manager knows what he/she is doing) but
never predictable. The point about 'growing a piece of city' is that it should be
expected to develop a life of its own. In order for this to happen, the physical
form needs to be built up along the lines presented in the following section.
The Physical Conditions for Making a City
Condition 1: Development Intensity
The essential condition for achieving urbanity is to generate enough diversity
the mixture of uses and activitiesto be self-sustaining. This diversity must be
sufficiently complex to stimulate public contact, transactions and street life. In
order for this to occur, a city district must have a sufficiently dense concentration
of people using it for a range of reasons, including residence. It is being
concentrated that produces urbanity and convenience. Therefore, relatively high
densities are essential. These should not be confused with overcrowding. See
Jacobs, 1961, chapter 7.
This implies high levels of ground coverage. There is no simple arithmetic
answer to optimum city density, as this varies depending on the characteristics
of place and the mix of activities. Densities can be too low where they fail to
generate vitality, and too high where they produce standardized buildings,
regimented layouts and large development footprints. Thus, density in itself
will not necessarily produce urbanity: density is a necessary rather than a
sufficient condition for urbanity. City districts which achieve diversity tend also
to achieve high pedestrian footfalls, and are more likely to be successful where
residential densities are over 50 dwellings per acre. Importantly, this can be
achieved without over-standardization of buildings, and should always be
accompanied by high representations of small-scale businesses and enterprises
(see Condition 3).

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104 J. Montgomery

This necessitates a building form of relatively high density and plot coverage.
It is important that the built form is counter-balanced by the correct amount of
open space (see Condition 8). This should not be too cramped or mean in its
level of provisionpeople need parks and city squares. But neither should high
density be accompanied by large tracts of empty space (the Le Corbusier model),
or streets and roads that are too wide. All of this implies a built form which
averages around five to six storeys, but which includes some higher buildings
and some lower ones too.
For residential neighbourhoods, the presumption should be in favour of
'mixed use urban districts': shops, restaurants and cafe's, offices and studios and
dwellings. These are likely to range over areas of both high and medium
development intensity. An example might be the newly planned urban district
at Egebjerggard, in Denmark. Here the aim has been to assemble various urban
functions, and to provide a framework for urban ecology and architectural
diversity and the public realm. Egebjerggard consists of a series of 'complexes'
of 20-50 units which integrate business and dwelling space. Each of these
neighbourhoods has a community hall which is used for parties, meetings, club
activities, laundry rooms and offices. The architecture varies considerably in
style, with a large proportion of it being modern.
Within any new city, therefore, there would need to be areas of high
development intensity, yielding building heights around an average of five to six
storeys. There would also be a wide range in style and density of residential
neighbourhoods, ranging from low-rise low density to medium-rise higher
density and high-intensity mixed urban districts closer to the core areas. There
would also be a mix of architectural styles. Each neighbourhood would have a
clearly delineated edge and separate identities.
Condition 2: Mixed Use

Vital urban areasand indeed as many of their constituent parts as possible

must serve more than one primary purpose, preferably more than two. These
primary purposes, and the 'secondary' activities they attract, must ensure the
presence of people on the streets and in the spaces and buildings across different
times of the day. People will use the place for a variety of different reasons, and
also be able to use many facilities in common. See Jacobs, 1961, chapter 8.
Places which fail in urban vitality, such as the City of London, do so not
because of a lack of people but because of insufficient mixture of primary uses
concentrated into particular hours of the day. Unlike Soho or Covent Garden,
people go there for one reason onlyto work in offices.
According to Jacobs (1961, pp. 161-164. There are two types of mixed use
diversity:
primary uses which bring people to specific places and therefore act as 'people
attractors': offices, residences, some shops and many (but not all) places of
education, recreation and entertainment. Sometimes the primary use which
attracts people is somewhat modesta small family cafe, a shoe shop, a
popular restaurant. However, no matter how successful the primary use, city
diversity is only achieved where primary uses are combined;
secondary diversity refers to the enterprises and services which grow in
response to primary uses, to serve the people which the primary uses attract.
If these secondary activities spread to provide a variety of consumer needs or

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tastes throughout the day, all sorts of specialized shops and services can
survive. This is a process which builds on itself, becoming increasingly
intricate and mixed.
For mixed use to operate successfully, three further conditions must be met:
people must use the same streets and spaces (see Condition 7), people must use
at least some of the same facilities, and activity must not be concentrated into a
particular time of the day.
It has recently become fashionable to speak of and plan for mixed use. But
often what are described as mixed-use developments fail because in reality they
are not really mixed at all. A development site which has offices in one part, a
drive-in restaurant in another and a retail warehouse on yet another might well
be described as mixed use, but in the absence of self-generating secondary
diversity, shared facilities and streets, the mixture is one of oil and water.
Thus it is important for mixture to occur not only within a city block or on a
development site but also within building blocks both horizontally (see Condition 6) and vertically. This is fundamentally important for commercial areas
but also in mixed residential neighbourhoods. That said, it will be important not
to allow bad neighbours (such as night clubs) to mix with residential apartments.
Areas of high development density can be planned to accommodate and
stimulate mixed use and self-generating secondary diversity. Vertical zoning
could be applied to ensure the presence of active uses on ground floors
(Montgomery, 1995b). Where possible, residential units, shops and even offices
would be accommodated within city blocks and within building blocks. Space
would be provided not only for primary uses, but also for secondary activities
such as pavement cafe's, galleries, specialist grocery stores and places of entertainment. A number of key 'people attractors' would need to be strategically
placed, not only in core areas, but also in those residential neighbourhoods
which are of medium density.
Condition 3: Fine Grain

The larger an urban place, the greater will tend to be both the number and
proportion of small businesses. Large businesses have greater self-sufficiency,
are able to provide most of the skills and equipment they need in-house, can
warehouse or deliver for themselves and sell to a broad (not locationally
specific) market. They need not be in cities, and often it is better or deemed
advantageous for them to relocate to green-field sites or business parks. By
contrast, small firms tend to draw on many and varied supplies and skills and
they often (but not always) serve narrow or place-specific markets. For such
enterprises (and for many larger ones) employees and executives need to be
in close, face-to-face contact with clients, customers and suppliers, or feel able
to pop out for a sandwich or a swim at lunchtime, or meet for drinks in
the evening. This is not to say that all city enterprises are small, for cities
accommodate both the supermarket and the corner shop. It is to say that
wherever lively and popular urban areas are found, the range of small businesses will outnumber the large. A lively city scene is lively largely by virtue
of the collection of small elements and in particular its commercial diversity.
The difference between urban areas which are dull and those which are vital

106 /. Montgomery

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can be traced to the presence or lack of small enterprises. (See Jacobs, 1961,
chapter 7). Thus, any successful urban place must not only accommodate large
enterprises (which employ large numbers of people and impact on the wider
local economy), but must also allow space for small enterprises to grow.
Any new city would ideally provide a range of unit sizes to cater for the needs
of both large and small enterprises. The development (and the economic) grain
would become more close and fine within areas of higher development intensity.
Within mixed city blocks, smaller units of varying sizes would be provided,
often on first and second floors (offices) but also on top floors (design studios)
and ground-floor frontages where the enterprise (a private gallery for example)
attracts customers or browsers from the street. Units can be fitted out to a range
of cost-specifications and sizes to allow for a mixture of occupancy. It will be
important too for there to be building forms in the mixed use residential areas
which can be adapted as dwellings, shops, studios and offices. This will ensure
maximum flexibility of use or adaptability (see Condition 4).
Condition 4: Adaptability

As we have seen, successful urban areas accommodate complex patterns of

diversity, mixture and economic grain. Places which continue to succeed despite
changes in economic conditions, technology and culture do so because their built
form is itself mixed and/or highly adaptable. City streets tend, for example, to
succeed over larger timescales than single-purpose office buildings which are
susceptible to changes in demand (down-sizing of labour forces), technology
(computer and cable ducting) and expectation (air conditioning, intimacy as
opposed to open plan). This is because, as a general rule, the life of streets and
urban areas is longer than the life of individual buildings, while the life of
buildings is longer than the life of their original function. By extension, the
successful urban area is one which offers in-built adaptability rather than
in-built obsolescence. Again, this is especially true of places which contain a high
proportion of small businesses of varying kinds.
There are a variety of building forms which offer such adaptability, and most
of them tend to be buildings on several floors with a mixture of room sizes on
each floor. Interestingly, whilst loft-living represents the adapting of old warehouse and light industrial accommodation for residential use, there are now
many examples of residential accommodation being adapted as offices or
studios, even galleries and cafes. Such forms, for example mansion blocks and
town houses, are not only adaptable in the types of activity they can accommodate, but also the levels of intensity of activity.
Condition 5: Human Scale

Scale is a combination of the ratio of building height to street width, relative

distance, permeability and the sense of grandeur or intimacy of space. As such
it is closely related to intensity, for more intense places have higher buildings.
Most of Soho and Mayfair, almost all of Amsterdam and much of ancient Rome
fits into one square mile, while only part of San Francisco's downtown fits into
such an area. Paris, on the other hand, has not one central area but a variety of
connected quartiers and arrondisements, most of which adopt a similar scale and
development intensity (See Jacobs, 1994).

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Making a City

107

There are no hard and fast rules concerning the relationship between building
heights and street widths, other than to say that higher buildings tend to require
wider streets, and more generous allowances for natural light and ventilation.
But even here, more intricate and complex places very often have high buildings
but only very narrow streets and alleyways (Bairro Alto in Lisbon for example).
The important consideration is whether one wishes to generate street life, and
therefore whether the overall 'shape' (Nairn, 1988) of the street allows for this to
happen. A related point is that most successful urban places operate at several
scales, but importantly are more rather than less intricate, are capable of being
walked in under 10 minutes, and have a large number of intersections. By and
large, successful urban districts covering an area of one square mile will tend to
have well over 250 intersections, sometimes more (Amsterdam has nearly 600,
Toulouse has 330, Mayfair 420) (Jacobs, 1994). Deliberately planned or spacedout places, by contrast, have fewer intersectionsWashington DC has 155
within a square mile, and Brasilia only 92.
A corollary of the number of intersections is the number of building blocks
(see Condition 6) within a given area, for the more intersections there are, the
more building blocks there will tend to be. Many urban planners in the past
advocated fewer and larger blocks and fewer streets and intersections in order
to rid the city of overcrowding and achieve greater spatial efficiency. The
problem is that by doing so, urbanity is destroyed. Alan Jacobs (1994) points out
that Boston's downtown area in 1895 had over 600 intersections and 400 blocks,
but today has less than 400 intersections and fewer than 250 blocks. So Boston
has become a less intricate and complex place. City blocks and land parcels have
become larger, as have the 'footprints' of individual buildings. And as this scale
gets larger, not only intersections but also whole streets are either lost or become
self-isolating.
Of course, it is possible to have too much intimacy, too many intersections and
therefore confusion. But this tends to occur only when both the number of
intersections and blocks exceeds 700 per square mile. It is also possible to have
many intersections and blocks but few public spaces, as in Bologna for example,
and this does not help in generating street life.
Thus, in order to achieve a pedestrian or walkable scale, more rather than
fewer intersections are necessary as indeed is greater intensity and building
height. The most beneficial combination of building heights, street widths (range
of), intersections and blocks is likely to fall in the range of 250 intersections and
250 blocks per square mile. This scale would be lower in residential neighbourhoods, although those which are mixed and of medium density would be of a
more intricate scale than more traditional suburban layouts.
Condition 6: City Blocks and Permeability

Closely related to considerations of scale are those to do with city blocks. Two
points can be made. The first is that most (not necessarily all) city blocks must
be short, thus providing more streets to walk down and more opportunities to
turn corners. This can also be achieved where the street pattern includes alleys,
ginnells and courtyards. All of these serve to increase the permeability
of an area, and therefore its potential 'footfall', and in turn increases
the number of economically viable points for trading (providing there
are units to trade from). Psychologically, people are less inclined to walk

108 /. Montgomery
A.
V////////////jid/////\

X////M/////////////A

V//////////////////A
B.

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Figure 4. City blocks: (a) long blocks hinder permeability; (b) shorter blocks
generate more street life. Source: Jacobs (1961).
down long unbroken streets with little activity or a monofunctional
identity, so that such streets become self-isolating and stagnant. Long city
blocks (see Figure 4a) not only hinder permeability, therefore, they also
thwart the possibilities of small enterprise development. And as more
streets become inactive, the reasons for keeping them in existence become fewer
... 'we might as well assemble a bigger plot because nothing happens around
here'.
By contrast, city districts which have more shorter blocks (see Figure 4b) tend
also to generate more street life, and even more streets where, for example, back
alleyways and courtyards are opened up to active use. To be successful, then,
city districts would comprise as many blocks as possible, and these should only
rarely exceed 300 X 300 feet (90 metres).
Second, the blocks themselves must be just that: blocks rather than building
plots. That is to say the building line must, leaving a sufficient pavement width,
be set up right against the street and ideally built around a central courtyard.
One of the failures of modern urban planning has been the insistence of situating
simple building blocks in the middle of a plot (Figure 5b) as opposed to being
arranged to create a street line (Figure 5a) (I was first shown this by my friend
Michael Synnott). By doing so, more land is used up and less activity is made
possible. This is the reverse of what should happen: the building should help
define the space rather than simply being set in it.
All of this means that, for a new city, city blocks should ideally not
exceed 300X300 feet. Buildings would not tend to be set back from the
street or positioned centrally within a plot but rather around central courtyards.
This is especially true of the core areas, but again would apply to the more
intricate mixed residential neighbourhoods. In these places more variety of
layout can be accommodated, but the accent would still be on achieving a
permeable grain.
Condition 7: Streets: Contact, Visibility and Horizontal Grain

Good urban places are judged by their street life. For it is in streetsas
multipurpose spacesthat all the ingredients of city life are combined: public

Making a City

109

(a)

(b)

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Figure 5. The siting of building blocks: (a) to create a street pattern;

(b) in the middle of a plot.
contact, public social life, people-watching, promenading, transacting, natural
surveillance and culture. Streets bring together people who do not know each
other in an intimate, private social sense, including strangers. The point about
good streets is that they allow people to be in contact with each other, but
simultaneously for individuals to remain private if they wish and to respect
other people's privacy. The street is a subtle balance of essential privacy and
varying degrees of public and private contact. Streets also provide a high degree
of natural surveillance where the presence of other people generates more 'eyes
on the street' (Jacobs, 1961, Chs 2 and 3) and therefore more self-policing.
However, for this to happen, streets need to be active, to accommodate and
generate diversity, and they must be permeable. They must also engender a
sense of belonging, a familiarity and the respect of users. There will also be those
who watch out for the street, whether from favourite resting places or the local
shops and pavement cafes. The successful street will have users on it fairly
continuously, watching and being watched. There will also be a clear demarcation of public and private spaces, places to promenade and shelter from the
wind. Good streets have well-defined edges and a quality of transparency or
visibility at their edges (where the private and public realms meet) (see Jacobs,
1961, p. 35). Thus, the design of a good street is perfectly possible provided that
it is first and foremost considered as a street and not a road. Along any
successful street frontage, there might be two food stores, a video store, an
off-licence, a patisserie, a cafe-bar, a gallery and restaurant, a pharmacy and a
betting shop (see Figure 6).
Thus, in contrast with many recent examples of new city building (for
example EuraLille or La Defense) active city districts should be designed around
a network of streets as opposed to roads or even over-wide squares and piazzas.
To stimulate more activity and natural surveillance, an element of horizontal
zoning of street frontages would be applied so that there will be a procession of
active frontages every 20-30 feet. Pavements should be wide enough to accommodate sidewalk cafes but not too wide so as to make the street itself overspaced, i.e. about 10-12 feet.

Condition 8: Public Realm

Streets are undoubtedly the most important elements in a city's public realm, the
network of spaces and corners where the public are free to go, to meet and
gather, and simply to watch one another. In fact, the public realm in a city
performs many functions, not only by providing meeting places but also in

110 /. Montgomery
VERTICAL GRAIN fZONINffl
ROOFGARDEN

HORIZONAL GRAIN (ZONING!

AAAAAAA

APARTMENT
APARTMENT
STUDIO
OFFICE
SHOP

STREET

CAFE SHOP PO BAR SHOP MWBS CAJI

STREET

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Figure 6. Designing a good street: vertical and horizontal grain (zoning).

helping to define the built environment, offering spaces for local traditions and
customs such as festivals and carnivals, and representing meaning and identity
(Gehl, 1995). It is therefore as important to think through the design of the public
realmits sequences, proportions and dimensionsas it is for city blocks and
individual buildings. Successful cities are in part shaped by the relationship of
built form to space, and the range, variety and characteristics of the spaces made
available: outdoor rooms, civic spaces, promenading routes, night-strips, quiet
gardens, little corners to rest awhile, favourite meeting places. This is not simply
a question of quantity or setting space standards (so many acres to population
bands), but a rather more complex understanding of the attributes of spaces,
their delineations, psychology and symbolism. In many cities in the UK, until
quite recently, not much thought has gone into the public realm, nor much of an
appreciation of it or the fact that it is being lost to development schemes and
private shopping malls. Consideration of the valuable role played by the public
realm ought to be a key development principle in city making.
Thus, in designing a city's built form around city blocks and streets, other
elements of a public realm or space system would be built into the city form,
including squares, meeting places and promenading routes. Attention would
also need to be paid to the safety of such places by promoting natural as well
as organized surveillance, by managing their upkeep properly and by installing
lighting systems of a high standard.

Condition 9: Movement

One of the major urban issues of the 1990s has undoubtedly been transport.
There has been an, at times, charged debate over the pros and cons of traffic
calming, public transport and road building. There is certainly a danger of
congested roads and traffic choking the cities. But there is also perhaps a danger
of policy swinging too heavily against cars. For no matter how good your public
transport system is, there will always be a need to make some journeys by
carfor business purposes, for going out at night, doing the weekly food shop
or making a cross-town or otherwise lateral trip (Comedia, 1991).

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Making a City

111

That said, for peak rush hours in particular, much can be done to reduce trips
to and from work by car: by traffic management, by investing in reliable and
frequent public transport alternatives, and by establishing networks of bicycle
lanes. Experience from elsewhere, notably Copenhagen, suggests that systems of
integrated transport 'nodes' bring many benefits in car trip reductionparticularly along rail and rapid transit routes. Thus, in many ways it is commuting
traffic which is the most important to tackle. Simply by locating major employment areas next to such transport nodes, it is possible to achieve a reduction in
trips made by car.
Even so, there will remain a requirement for people to travel by car. All of this
means that car travel must be accommodated within cities but not allowed to
dominate or impose. In this way, the more intensive 'core' areas would tend to
place more restrictions on car access and parking, while cars will always be an
important feature of life in residential areas. Routes whose primary purpose is
to connect the city with other places sub-regionally and regionally will be of an
altogether different type than those which permeate the built form.
In addition, it is likely that some creative measures would need to be
employed to provide off-street parking for residents and other users, particularly
in core areas. This might include underground car parks, car parks contained
within city blocks but wrapped around by more active uses, automated car silos,
and town houses with integrated garages.
Condition 10: Green Space and Water Space

Public green space and water areas are important to city life for many reasons,
for example:
recreation, providing a range of informal and formal playgrounds, fields and
gardens for varying degrees of passive and active pursuits;
health, filtering the noise, light and air of the city;
setting and understanding, by framing development sites, providing views and
landscape image.
To these we can add parks and open areas which are people attractors in their
own right, whether as botanic or Italian gardens or as amusement or pleasure
parks such as Tivoli Gardens where one can stroll about, have lunch or dinner
and watch concerts and other performances. Parks, historically, for example
Vauxhall Gardens, were places to meet, promenade and to learn and practise
forms of behaviour such as the tipping of hats to ladies. Parks can also be used
for fairs, fireworks displays, concerts and other cultural events. Moreover, such
open space areas should also connect as often as possible to the more urban
public realm discussed in Condition 8.
Condition 11: Landmarks, Visual Stimulation and Attention to Detail

At every instant, there is more than the eye can see, more than the ear
can hear, a setting or a view waiting to be explored. Nothing is
experienced by itself, but always in relation to its surroundings and
sequences of events leading up to it, the memory of past experiences.
(Lynch, 1960)

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112 /. Montgomery

Landmarks, meeting places and smaller scale signatures have always played an
important role in the life and design of cities. In laying out modern Rome, Pope
Sixtus was careful to situate a number of obelisks which were designed to help
pilgrims orientate themselves, to make the city more legible and to foreshorten
distances by placing objects on the vanishing point (Sennet, 1990).
More recently, public art has become important for the way it contributes to
a greater sense of place by upgrading the quality of the built environment,
creating meeting places and talking points, coming to represent important points
of reference and for its capacity to animate public space. There are also now
many examples of public art being used to reflect the aspirations and experiences of the local citizenry, a form of community expression, and there are even
examples of such work discouraging vandalism.
As well as the more obvious elements such as sculpture and murals, it is
important to consider decorative features such as reliefs, street furniture (everything from benches to streetlamps to signposts), even the design of public space
itself. This can even be extended to provide orientation and direction to the
people using an entire city or city district. In Phoenix, Arizona, for example, the
public art programme has been designed to operate within 'five spatial urban
design systems': water, parks and open spaces, vehicular systems, pedestrian
systems and landmark systems. One of the chief aims is to create for the people
of Phoenix a spatial structure of places, landmarks and experiences, evoking a
strong sense of history and orientation. Such approaches have also been adopted
in Temple Bar (Dublin) and La Defense in Paris where along the Grand Axis
alone there are some 30 works of art, 70 fountains, manicured gardens, paved
courts, cafes and street markets.
Of course, if the city itself is badly designed or lacking in activity, no amount
of public art will make all that much of a difference. And indeed, many
landmarks, reference points and meeting places need not be overly arty at all.
The place to meet in Lisbon is the San Salvatore Escalator (a functional piece of
nineteenth-century engineering), whereas the reference points in Liverpool are
the two cathedrals and the Liver Building.
That said, the possibilities for introducing exciting and innovative pieces and
installations are many. And where this extends to the fine detail of reliefs and
street furniture the opportunity is one of moving beyond the municipal over-design of the public realm which, sadly, has been a characteristic of city design in
recent times.
New city developments ought to incorporate a wide-ranging programme of
public art and landmarking, in its water, open space, vehicular and pedestrian
systems, so designed as to underpin the legibility of the city overall and to
provide individual features and points of interest. This could extend to the
design of street furniture and other detailing, to the creation of public spaces
themselves, and even to lighting features and holograms.

Condition 12: Architectural Style as Image

In the course of this paper I have been careful to stress that city building and city
design are not questions of architectural style, that is to say the design and
appearance of individual buildings. Rather, the essential task is to design the
form of the city in such a way as to achieve city diversity, activity and urbanity.

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Making a City 113

That said, the question of architectural style is not unimportant for this also
conveys meaning, shapes identity and creates image.
This prompts a further question: if a place is to be a city in form, what
message should its style convey? This is not an idle point. The options lie along
a spectrum of neo-Georgian, fake Victorian, high modernism, postmodernism
and replica vernacular. Certainly, good cities have always been places which
personify or at least display strong elements of culture, technology, engineering
innovation, civilization and cosmopolitanism. Cities should not be allowed to
become non-places of transatlantic monocultural 'international' architecture.
And here it is important to distinguish between modernism (an ideological
project as well as an architectural movement) and modernity. For, in truth, the
two are quite separate. The latter is simply about using design skills and
materials to fashion objects which function well and are in themselves beautiful:
a George Jensen watch, a Philip Starke chair, the lines on a Pininfarina car. Not
all cars look like 1930s Bentleys, beautiful though these are, so why need all
buildings look like the Acropolis?
Perhaps we are labouring the point. Put simply, cities should be places which
are diverse, cosmopolitan and cultured, and this should include modern architecture.
Conclusion
This paper was originally designed to provide a reasoned rationale and exposition of good practice in the design of cities. It is not intended to be a master plan
(nor could it be) but rather an illustrated discussion of the qualities of successful
urban places. I have gone so far as to provide a list of 12 essential conditions for
achieving the necessary 'fit' of built form to activity and image. But it is
important to stress, finally, that in designing a new piece of city, it is essential
to consider form, activity and image in tandem and progressively. Each should
reinforce the other. That is the way cities grow.
A wider question arises in relation to my earlier aims in writing this piece.
Namely, is it possible to adopt these principles in the production of built forms
whatever the cultural context of a place? In particular, would it be possible to
build from scratch a new urban place in the UK from antecedents which are
widely believed to derive from the compact European city? For, is it not the
caseso the argument goesthat the British are uncomfortable with the notion
of city living, and anyway the weather rules out a more active public realm,
street life and cafe culture? Certainly, from the late 1920s onwards, there has
been a pronounced pattern of outward migration from the cities, initially to new
suburbs and new settlements, and latterly to market towns. People, it seems,
have been voting with their feet, and many of the English cities (usually those
which were the more industrialized) have lost population and economic activity.
Several have become relatively lifeless, dull and inert. The Scots, by comparison,
appear to be more urban in their outlook, there being substantially larger
residential populations in the centre of Glasgow and Edinburgh than (say) Leeds
or Manchester.
So perhaps it is true that the English, at heart, aspire to rural and suburban
living rather than the urban. Yet such a sweeping conclusion would ignore the
fact that the English were celebrated town and city dwellers for many centuries,
as evidenced in Thomas Burke's (1941, 1946) accounts. It would also fly in the

114 /. Montgomery
Table 2. Summary principles for achieving urbanity
(A) Activity

(B) Image

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(C) Form

Principle
Principle
Principle
Principle
Principle
Principle
Principle
Principle
Principle
Principle
Principle
Principle
Principle
Principle
Principle
Principle
Principle
Principle
Principle
Principle
Principle
Principle
Principle
Principle
Principle

1:
2:
3:
4:
5:
6:
7:
8:
9:
10:
11:
12:
13:
14:
15:
16:
17:
18:
19:
20:
21:
22:
23:
24:
25:

Generating pedestrian flows and vitality

Seeding people attractors
Achieving a diversity of primary and secondary uses
Developing a density of population
Varying opening hours and stimulating the evening economy
Promoting street life and people-watching
Growing a fine-grained economy
Legibility
Imageability
Symbolism and memory
Psychological access
Receptivity
Knowledgeability
Achieving development intensity
Zoning for mixed use
Building for a fine grain
Adaptability of the built stock
Scale
City blocks and permeability
Streets: contact, visibility and horizontal grain
The public realm
Movement
Green space and water space
Landmarks, visual stimulation and attention to detail
Architectural style as image

face of much contemporary (though as yet not properly documented) evidence

that people are now choosing to live in the centre of cities once more. Initially
seen as the preserve of so-called 'urban elites' (artists, media types, professionals) this phenomenon is apparently spreading. London, by all accounts, is
enjoying a renaissance both as a creative economy and a place to be, and cities
such as Manchester and Newcastle are witnessing a growth in city centre
apartments, bars, cafes and restaurants. It seems too, that interest in city living
is not confined to young singles and childless couples, but also to older people
(some of whom are moving back to the city now that the children have left
home) and even people with young children (provided the schools are acceptable). What all of this suggests is that, for at least some social groups, cities are
the place to be once more.
At the very least, such an analysis would help us to explain the almost daily
emergence of mixed-use development schemes and proposals, and the current
round of investment in good quality restaurants, cafes and clubs. More importantly, it suggests that we can no longer simply dismiss urban living as
un-English, or something that would not work here. Perhaps the key point is
that now that cities are no longer as overcrowded or squalid as they were in the
1860s (which after all is rather a long time ago), and as people become more
sophisticated in understanding their environment and in appreciating city
quality, then more rather than less of them will opt to live in urban places for
at least part of the time. This will not suit everyone, but surely that is the point
about diversity and choice.
Cities and urban projects should always be seen, considered and devised
within the appropriate context, culturally, economically and environmentally.

Making a City 115

But we must be careful not simply to accept the apparently dominant or
received view of any society's values and ways of life, and instead seek to cater
for diversity and choice. My own view is that there are many English people
who, given the choice, would like to live in places with the urban qualities
described in this paper. If this is the case, then at least a proportion of any new
settlements built in the next few years should be urban rather than suburban in
scale and character. To do this, we must understand what makes a city a city,
and not a town or a suburb (see Table 2). This paper, however modest, is my
own version, derived from the literature and direct experience, of how this
might be done.

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Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Mark Pennington, Project Director New
Ebbsfleet, of Blue Circle Properties Ltd (and more recently Whitecliffe Properties
Ltd) for permission to publish this abridged version of his work. Thanks also to
Will Cousins of David Lock Associates, and to the wider project team on New
Ebbsfleet, and in particular Bridget Rosewell, David Lock, Jason Prior, Keith
Mitchell and Ian Trehearne. This article is dedicated to Tony Kemp.
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