Some qualitative aspects of the urban environment in developed countries

The quality of life in cities is a subject that has aroused considerable concern and fears, but treatment of the subject tends to have become distorted by pre-existing values and subsumed under broader questions. This paper concentrates on the city as an experienced place and focuses on three emerging areas of discussion. The first part deals with the shift from two-dimensional, plan-based proposals for the future to three-dimensional theories applied to the finer grain of future urban form. The second part deals with the increasing realisation of the cultural basis and manifestations of quality in urban life and the research on urban cultural innovation which this has encouraged, drawing evidence from the Council of Europe's 21-town cultural innovation project. The final section discusses the significance of dreams for the future in shaping the urban environment of the future. It points to the current vacuum in thinking on the subject and indicates the problems that this poses for making choices for the urban environment.