City Plans By Designers, Not Developers

Author Magnus Linklater is not too happy with the way British towns are evolving. He recalls the early days of many towns when a few people guided the development of the town and shaped its form with confidence and broad oversight. But now as developers are replacing the planners and architects that used to guide the city form, the author feels that cities desperately need a leader to control design.

"There is a strong case for cities each to have an architect-in-chief, someone with the taste and vision to veto the worst and encourage the best. In reality, however, his powers are always likely to be limited. The days when cities were laid out and designed by powerful men of vision are long gone. We live in the age of the developer, and though a city’s planning department can and does control, modify and even veto the design ideas put forward by commercial organizations, it does not, by and large, dictate them."