The art of urbanism.

London was the first great industrialised global city, and it remains at the forefront it helped to create thanks to its pre-eminence as a financial capital and cultural hothouse, its industrial and manufacturing role having vanished quite rapidly after the Second World War. The speed of growth it experienced in the nineteenth century, and the patterns of land and property ownership which informed its development, made London (as Rasmussen described it) the 'unique city', relying neither on dirigiste Continental planning models, nor the faux democracy of the American grid. Instead, in its messy, fascinating way, a metropolis emerged of intensity flanked by a suburban hinterland of home and garden; city buildings contrasted with the great parks, heaths and commons which give London such a distinct identity. The combination of private and public development (for example the housing estates of the London County Council sitting next to areas inhabited by the rich) rubbed shoulders successfully for a century.

So why is the planning of London now the subject of such anxiety and controversy? Why is there so much disagreement over tall buildings, transport investment, house-building and the public realm? Did we lose faith in the success of old models for planning and development, or were those models flawed from the start? Is Britain, the country which invented town and country planning and the postwar New Towns, incapable of rising to the challenge of re-making London for the twenty-first century? We appear to be in danger of creating false orthodoxies in the way we think about planning and development, for example in assuming that everyone wants to live in tower blocks, that density can only be achieved in tall buildings, and that a one-size-fits-all approach to urbanism is the only solution.

The Architectural Review has invited Sir Terry Farrell, a true urbanist, to present his ideas on how London could be improved, which forms the theme of this issue. Much work is being carried out in the capital on specific major projects (not least the 2012 Olympics), and through the Mayor on the planning strategies which will inform what is to come. The Farrell proposition, that 'place' is of primary importance, is not something which should be at odds with the proposals of architects and planners with different views about the city. It must be said, however, that the last fifty years in London and elsewhere saw the abandonment of place-making in favour of car traffic, comprehensive development, dumb shopping centres, alienating office complexes and fortress housing estates--impermeable and essentially anti-urban. It doesn't have to be like that.