Cities for the New Millennium

The nature of cities and settlements represents one of the great international challenges of our time. How are we to make the buildings of the future and the communities they must house? Where should we site them: in compact cities or ramifying suburbs, on brown or green land? Can we arrest urban decline, or should we adjust to it? These are subjects of intense political and public moment. They are also complex questions, bound up with issues of sustainability, infrastructure and movement. They demand interdisciplinary solutions. Cities for the New Millennium is the outcome of a joint conference held in Salford in July 2000 by the Royal Institute of British Architects and the University of Cambridge’s Department of Architecture. It tackles these questions in the light of the Urban Task Force’s report about the future of Britain’s cities and communities, but sets them in an international and historical context. Professionals - architects, engineers and developers as well as academics from different countries and disciplines here lavish their expertise on issues of transportation, density, land use, risk and energy saving; others present urban-scale buildings or landscapes that have been judged inspirational or inventive. This book, therefore, is not just about theories of urbanism. It reveals how co-operation and debate between different parties and professions can illuminate the creative kind of urban development we should be aiming for. Peter Carolin, Marco Goldschmeid, Richard Burdett, Lord Rogers, Richard Sennett, Tony Travers, Harry Richardson, Marcial Echenique, Tom Bloxham, Peter Latz, Kees Christiaanse, Ashok Bhalotra, Dirk Fri