It is hard to avoid the postmodern perspective. We lost faith in our ability to design and direct the development of our society. The very industrial base that was to be the engine of our liberation has diffused away. Without it, the city lost its hold on our lives and it no longer provides life's essentials. Since we moved out to the suburbs it is just too difficult to come into the city to buy food, household goods or even cars. Cities are still centers for the clerical and administrative work of public and private organizations but many of these have acknowledged that they have no compelling reason to be there.

So cities, like Manchester, are trying to re-invent themselves as cultural centers, trying to convince us that if we don't live or work in the city, it is the place to play. At the moment major museums, libraries and concert halls are mostly found in cities and cities compete to be hosts of major sporting events.

(Banner for 2002 Commonwealth Games)

It is appropriate that city architects and landscape designers begin to treat their spaces playfully. But as the the city has lost most of its productive industry it has remained a center of consumption with a footprint extending far beyond its physical boundaries. The radical critique has it that we were herded into cities by industrialists who were blind to the personal, social and environmental damage that they caused. The more liberal view is that we worked individually and collectively to better our circumstances by accepting the opportunities of a new way of living.

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